Canberra is Australia’s capital city, chosen in 1908 as a compromise between rival cities Sydney and Melbourne.
The planned city occupies a basin in the Australian Capital Territory, about halfway between the two major southeastern cities. American architect Walter Burley Griffin and Marion Mahony Griffin won an international design competition in 1912, proposing a layout of geometric avenues, parks and a central lake. Construction and development continued for decades.
Australia’s federal Parliament moved from Melbourne to Canberra in 1927, when the provisional Parliament House opened. The current Parliament House opened on Capital Hill in 1988. Canberra is inland, unlike Sydney and Melbourne, and has a population far smaller than either metropolitan area. The name is commonly linked to an Aboriginal word interpreted as “meeting place,” though its precise linguistic history is debated.