Australia is rich with history, and some of its cities trace their foundations back to the 1700s when Europeans first arrived. Of course, the country’s First Nations people have a history too, with sites dating back millennia. Lovers of historic architecture will find the country peppered with scenic cities steeped in secrets of bygone eras and old-world charm. Here is our pick of the best historic centres to visit around Australia's states and territories.
The oldest Australian city, Sydney was discovered by Captain Arthur Phillip when the First Fleet of 11 ships sailed into its bounteous natural harbour in January 1788. Australia’s first penal colony was founded on Sydney Cove – now Circular Quay – and the British colonisation began. Their arrival had a devastating impact on the Eora Nation, Aboriginals who were the traditional owners of NSW. Today, the harbour is full of historic sites, including the Royal Botanic Gardens, where the first European farm was tilled. Learn about the city and the land from the Gadigal people, one of the Eora Nation’s 29 clan groups, on an Aboriginal Cultural Tour.
The Rocks is Sydney's oldest neighbourhood and where the earliest settlers lived. Its cobbled lanes and sandstone buildings have many a tale to tell – quench your thirst in Sydney's oldest pub, the Fortune of War, and you’ll hear plenty. You’ll find the city's oldest building here too, Cadman’s Cottage, built as the coxswain's barracks in 1816. Sydney's Central Business District is filled with elegant architecture including Customs House, the General Post Office and the Queen Victoria Building. Leafy suburbs like Balmain, Paddington and Woollahra are lined with Federation-era terraces and cottages with exquisite iron lacework verandas, while Vaucluse House is one of Sydney's only remaining 19th-century harbourside estates.
First founded illegally in 1835 by sheep farmers (who sailed surreptitiously over from Van Diemen's Land, now Tasmania, and settled), Melbourne was proclaimed a city in 1847. It later became the capital of the new colony of Victoria in 1851. Built on the traditional land of the Kulin Nation, the city has a rich and fascinating history and plenty of places to discover its Indigenous and colonial past. The Koorie Heritage Trust runs guided walking tours of the Birrarung Marr and Yarra River, and around the city’s sites of cultural significance, while the excellent Bunjilaka Aboriginal Cultural Centre at the Melbourne Museum celebrates the history and culture of Victoria’s Aboriginal people.
The city is full of historic landmarks, colonial-era parks and characterful neighbourhoods shaped by the different immigrants that have made the multicultural area their home. Chief among them are the 1880 World Heritage–listed Royal Exhibition Building, Government House, Queen Victoria Market, Old Melbourne Gaol (where notorious bushranger Ned Kelly was hanged in 1880) and Royal Arcade. In pretty Fitzroy Gardens, you can see Cooks' Cottage, the childhood home of Captain James Cook, which was shipped to Melbourne and reconstructed. Trams have been part of the city’s DNA since 1885 – hop on the free City Circle Tram to loop around Melbourne’s main sights.
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Set at the base of the Mount Lofty Ranges on the River Torrens as it flows down to Gulf St Vincent, Adelaide was Australia’s first free settled colony. The city was established in 1836 by Colonel William Light on the traditional homelands of the Kaurna people, who knew the area as Tarntanya (red kangaroo place). It was named after Queen Adelaide, wife of King William IV. Today the city’s main square is known as Victoria Square or Tarntanyangga (red kangaroo dreaming). As a planned city, and the country’s second smallest state capital, Adelaide’s compact centre and wide, grid-like streets are easy to explore.
Start your wanderings on Hindley Street, one of Adelaide's original public roads that's still lined with heritage buildings. Known as the city’s earliest entertainment district, the site of the current Black Bull Hotel is where the settlement’s first permanent hotel, the Buffalo’s Head, was built in 1838. Stroll around its verdant botanic gardens, built in 1877, and marvel at the magnificent Palm House. Uncover gruesome stories at the notorious Adelaide Gaol and be wowed by the treasures within the South Australian Museum. Food and wine are integral to the city’s history. Get a taste at Adelaide Central Market, operating since 1869, and the nearby Barossa Valley.
Perched on the edge of the Indian Ocean, the Swan River plains where Perth sits were home to the Whadjuk people of the Noongar Nation for at least 45,000 years until the land was colonised by Captain James Stirling in 1829. It was named capital of the Swan River Colony and was the first colony of free settlers founded with private money. It was named after the Scottish birthplace of the then-British Secretary of State for the Colonies, Sir George Murray. Imagine the land as it was before the colonists arrived in Kings Park – two thirds of this sprawling green space is native bushland. You can join free guided walks to hear how the Whadjuk people used it as a meeting place and hunting ground.
A gold boom saw Perth prosper and rapidly expand. Unfortunately, much of its early architecture was demolished between the 1960s and 1980s but some pretty patches remain. Old melds with new at Cathedral Square, opened in 2015, which encompasses the city’s 19th-century state buildings, including the beautiful Old Treasury Building and Gothic-style Perth Town Hall. Built by convicts, it was Perth's tallest building when it opened in 1870. It’s also the site of St George’s Cathedral, also built by convicts and consecrated in 1888. Other treasures are the Perth Mint, the oldest operating mint in Australia (and its only remaining gold rush mint), and the 1837-built Old Court House Law Museum.
Queensland’s capital traces its urban history back to 1824 and the fearsome Moreton Bay Penal Settlement, an isolated place of exile for re-offending convicts. It was relocated to the north bank of the Brisbane River in 1825. By 1842, the penal settlement was formally abolished and the area opened up to free settlers. Queensland became a separate colony in 1859, with Brisbane as its capital. The Old Windmill in Observatory Park is its oldest building, built and often powered by convicts. Also worth a visit is Newstead House, a lavish place built in 1846 and Brisbane’s oldest standing European residence.
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A tour of Old Government House and its museum, set next to the beautiful Botanic Gardens in the Central Business District, will also give you a glimpse of the city’s early colonial days, while the Museum of Brisbane, housed in the handsome Brisbane City Hall, brings myriad stories to life evocatively through art and artefacts. Bar hop along Burnett Lane, the city’s oldest laneway which dates from 1829, then mooch around the inner city suburbs to admire some historic Queenslanders. This architectural style was typical of the late 1800s, characterised by weatherboard sidings, ornate wrought-iron wraparound verandas and stilts. Paddington, Red Hill, Nundah and Hawthorne have some beauties.
Cyclones and bombs might have demolished Darwin’s oldest structures, but the resilient NT capital is still a fascinating place for history buffs. Set on a deep inlet of the Beagle Gulf, the Larrakia people had long established trading routes with other Indigenous groups and fishermen from Indonesian islands when the first Europeans arrived. It was admiral John Lort Stokes who earmarked the site for the British when he sailed into the large harbour aboard the HMS Beagle in 1839, later naming it after Charles Darwin. The first settlement started in 1869 and was called Palmerston, which expanded exponentially after gold was discovered nearby. It was renamed Darwin in 1911 and granted city status in 1959 after the Second World War.
The city port was the country’s only battleground and was extensively bombed by the Japanese in 1942. A cluster of landmarks from its pre-war years remain, including Brown's Mart, an 1880s-era stone building, Government House and Fannie Bay Gaol, used between 1883 and 1979. Take a cruise of Darwin Harbour to see its historic wharves and board a restored army truck to hear wartime stories on the Darwin History and Wartime Experience Tour. You’ll visit bunkers, oil storage tunnels and cemeteries, plus the Darwin Military Museum. Don’t miss the Museum and Gallery of the Northern Territory either to discover the devastation Cyclone Tracy wrought in 1974.
Joshua John Moore was the first European to settle in the traditional lands of the Ngunnawal people. He established a station in 1823, where the National Museum of Australia is today. Scotsman Robert Campbell arrived just after, building a large estate called Duntroon. One of its 1860 worker dwellings, Blundells Cottage, remains and can be visited in Kings Park. Campbell financed Canberra's St John's church and its schoolhouse in 1841, the oldest surviving buildings in the inner city. With its name an anglicised version of Aboriginal words meaning ‘meeting place’, Canberra became the Federation capital on 1 January 1911, precisely 10 years after the different colonies became states in the Commonwealth of Australia.
Construction of the planned new capital began in 1920 with Hotel Canberra, Hotel Kurrajong and the first Parliament House (now home to the Museum of Australian Democracy) among the first buildings. As well as some 19th-century landmarks and Art Deco gems, the city is packed with cultural sites of huge national importance that brim with historic treasures. These include the National Gallery of Australia, the National Archives of Australia, the National Library of Australia, the National Museum of Australia and the Australian War Memorial. To step back into Canberra's beginnings, take a drive out to Lanyon Homestead, a beautifully restored 1850s homestead by the Murrumbidgee River.
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The second oldest city in Australia, Hobart oozes old-world charm. A notoriously rough and ready place, the far-flung settlement officially began in 1804 after Lieutenant David Collins set up a penal site on Van Diemen’s Land's south coast. Their arrival devastated the Muwinina and Mumirimina people. The harbour soon attracted whalers and sealers, eventually becoming a major whaling port that was notorious for its rowdy pubs and brothels. Female convicts were housed in the city’s south – you can learn about the inhabitants and the brutality they suffered at the Cascades Female Factory, which opened in 1828 and is now one of 11 World Heritage-listed convict sites in Australia.
Hobart has an abundance of historic buildings, notably in Salamanca Place with its handsome sandstone Georgian-era warehouses. These old spaces now bustle with galleries, shops and restaurants, and a lively market sets up on Saturdays. Head up 19th-century Kelly's Steps from here to Battery Point, the oldest part of the city named after the gun battery that once protected the harbour. It’s a charming spot with narrow cobbled streets, old weatherboard workers’ cottages, merchant mansions, stone churches and the pretty Princes Park. Catch a show at the oldest continuously operating theatre in Australia, Theatre Royal, built in 1837 in Wapping.
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Tasmania’s second largest city, Launceston also lays claim to being the country’s third oldest. This northern Tasmanian city sits on the Tamar estuary, where the North Esk and South Esk rivers meet, and was settled by the British military in 1806. Originally called Patersonia by its founder Lieutenant Colonel William Paterson, it was later renamed after the Cornish birthplace of Governor Philip Gidley King. The riverside outpost soon became a thriving port, shipping wool and wheat produced in the verdant Tamar Valley. The town also prospered during the region’s gold mining boom, evidenced by its grand 19th-century buildings and parks, many of which remain.
The compact city is eminently walkable. Start at Prince’s Square, a former convict brick pit transformed into a pretty square in the 1850s, and lined with well-preserved Georgian and Victorian buildings. Then stroll along St John Street, passing the Neoclassical town hall and handsome post office building on the corner of Cameron Street. An imposing customs house sits by the river, along which you’ll find James Boag Brewery, brewing here since 1881. More historic treasures lie along George Street, including the National Trust-owned Old Umbrella Shop with its pristine Victorian-era shopfront and interior. Franklin House is a splendid spot to get a sense of the city’s colonial days.
The second largest city in New South Wales is also its second oldest. Newcastle was founded at the mouth of the Hunter River as a convict settlement in 1804 after coal deposits were discovered in the Hunter Valley. It swiftly became a thriving port for shipping the coal and later prospered from steel mining. The coastal city has retained many of its imposing 19th-century architectural monuments including Customs House, the Newcastle Railway Station and its old wharves. It also has the oldest oceanside baths on the east coast, the 1819 convict-carved Bogey Hole baths.
The heritage-listed swimming spot can be reached from King Edward Park, where you'll find one of Newcastle's oldest navigational markers, a hill-top obelisk. Cooks Hill is a particularly picturesque pocket, where many of the first free settlers lived. Along with well-preserved 19th-century terrace houses, it has the city’s oldest surviving church, St John's. A walk along the convict-constructed Nobbys Breakwall, beneath the 1858 Nobbys Lighthouse, is a must.
This isolated outpost right in the heart of Australia has been home to the Arrernte people for thousands of years. Its history as a town began when the Overland Telegraph Line was constructed through the middle of the country in 1871. Like other Outback towns on its route, a settlement shot up around Alice Springs’ telegraph station. Its population was given a boost in 1887 when alluvial gold was discovered at Arltunga, and again when the railway arrived in 1929. It was known as Stuart up until 1933, when it was officially renamed Alice Springs after Alice Todd, the wife of Charles Todd, who was awarded the tender to construct the line; and the watering hole by the telegraph station that was mistakenly identified as a spring.
Set just north of the city centre, the Alice Springs Telegraph Station Historic Reserve is where the first European settlement took shape. After it closed in 1932, the buildings were used as an education centre called the Bungalow for mixed race children. It’s recognised today as a key site in the country’s horrific Stolen Generation history. Tours delve into these tragic events as well as early settler life. The Alice Springs Heritage Precinct is home to the 1908 Stuart Town Gaol, the city's oldest surviving building. To tap into the area’s Indigenous history, strike out to the magnificent MacDonnell Ranges where you can hear age-old stories and see petroglyphs on cultural tours.
A characterful riverside city north of Sydney, Windsor traces its European history back to 1789 when Governor Arthur Phillip and a small party set off to explore the Hawkesbury River. Some of these early explorers stayed and farmed the lands in what became known as Green Hills. In 1810, Governor Macquarie ordered the creation of the formal township of Windsor, along with other settlements like Richmond, Wilberforce, Pitt Town and Castlereagh. The regional city has retained many of its stately public buildings and boasts a stunning collection of grand Georgian-era residences and Victorian cottages.
The self-guided Windsor Heritage Highlights walk is a brilliant way to immerse yourself in the city’s past. Start at the glorious Georgian-era Thompson Square, the oldest in Australia and home to its oldest hotel building, the Macquarie Arms Hotel, which dates from 1815. Nip into the Hawkesbury Regional Museum, partly set in the 1820s Howe House, to glean more historic insights. Other key landmarks are the former Hawkesbury Hospital, erected in 1820 as a convict barracks; St Matthew's Church and Windsor Court House – the latter two designed by Francis Greenway, a British architect who was transported to the colony for forgery.
Founded in 1815 on the western slopes of the Great Dividing Range, Bathurst has a rich history in more ways than one. It was Australia's first inland European settlement and the first place gold was discovered, with the country outpost flourishing in the 1860s. Its prosperity can be seen in the plethora of grand heritage buildings and public houses that still sprinkle its streets. The Bathurst District Historical Society Museum, set in a wing of the impressive 19th-century Bathurst Courthouse, charts the city’s early days. The society also manages the Old Government Cottage on Stanley Street, one of the few remaining early homes, and opens it for tours on select days.
Other essential stops are the former-home-now-museum of prime minister Ben Chifley, Machattie Park (built on the site of Bathurst Gaol in 1889), and the heritage-listed railway station and rail museum. Stroll anywhere in Bathurst’s central heritage district and you’ll stumble upon beautifully restored 19th-century homes and miners’ cottages, some now home to bustling cafes and restaurants. Keppel Street also has some jewels – Abercrombie House, an 1870s Scottish-baronial mansion on the outskirts of town, was the home of Bathurst pioneer James Stewart. Still a private home, it’s open to tours and hosts a delightful high tea in its ballroom on select Sundays.
Fremantle, or Freo, sits just south of Perth at the mouth of the Swan River and is home to the state’s most historic sites. The oldest is the Round House, built between 1830 and 1831 as the colony's very first jail. A tunnel was later dug through the cliffs beneath so whalers could move their oil from the beach to the port. Known as Whalers Tunnel, it’s just one of many intriguing places in Freo's West End. This historically rich area was at the heart of the bustling port’s 1890s gold mining boom and charms with narrow laneways and Georgian and Victorian-style architecture, including handsome Federation-style merchant warehouses.
The Round House was replaced by the larger convict-built Fremantle Prison in the 1850s after the first transportation arrived in Fremantle Harbour. Constructed from locally quarried limestone, it remained in use until 1991. Today it’s the state’s only UNESCO World Heritage-listed building. Torchlight tours of the prison and its tunnels really bring the spooky site to life. Other gems in Freo’s storied streets are the Fremantle Arts Centre, set within a Gothic 1860s building built by convicts as a lunatic asylum, and the Fremantle Markets. Established in 1897, the old limestone market hall still bustles with traders. Freo is also renowned for its heritage-listed pubs and long-running brewing tradition.
A leafy riverside city set in the undulating Southern Tablelands, Goulburn is rich in regional charm and history. As with many Australian cities, it traces its urban roots back through a murky past. It was founded as a garrison and convict town in 1833, situated on the convict-constructed Great South Road. It was declared a city in 1863 by Queen Victoria, the state’s first inland one. Plot a route into its history on a self-guided heritage walk that takes in the impressive courthouse and old post office on the gorgeous Auburn Street, where you can stop to browse antiques. Grafton Street, the oldest street in the city, is the place to gawp at more 19th-century gems, including the Hibernian Hotel, first licensed in 1850, and a fitting place to refuel.
Carry on your explorations at the superb sandstone courthouse, the grand Gothic-Revival St Saviour’s Cathedral and Belmore Park. Goulburn has plenty of cultural treasures too – it's home to the longest-running theatre company in Australia, the Lieder Theatre Company, which was established in 1891; and one of its oldest newspapers, the Goulburn Post, printed continuously since 1870. For a picturesque riverside stroll, follow the Wollondilly River Walkway where you’ll find another historic wonder, the Goulburn Historic Waterworks Museum.
Victoria’s oldest permanent settlement, Portland has prime pickings for history buffs with more than 200 buildings of historic significance. The first settlement on the traditional lands of the Gunditjmara people was undertaken by a man called Edward Henty and his brother in 1834. They’d sailed into Portland Bay from Tasmania looking for grazing land and staked a claim on the arable landscape. As well as farming, they saw the opportunity for whaling and the township flourished as a whaling station with whale boat-making a key industry. Known as the western gateway to the Great Ocean Road, the port now lures travellers from across the seas looking to spot whales and seals from its shores.
Stroll along Henty Bay and imagine how it looked to the early arrivals, then step into the harbour’s colourful past at Gordon’s Hotel, Victoria’s longest running pub. The city also has the state’s oldest Anglican church: St Stephen’s was founded in 1834. Take a ride on the vintage Portland Cable Tram, which trundles along the foreshore, hopping off at the Portland Maritime Museum and Discovery Centre to find out about life in the isolated whaling town and the fatal shipwrecks that haunt its treacherous shores. Historic lighthouses dot the cliffs, including Cape Nelson Lighthouse (pictured) and Whalers Bluff Lighthouse. There's a reason it's called the Shipwreck Coast.
The largest Outback city in Western Australia, Kalgoorlie was built on gold and a trip here will transport you to its gold rush days. Before Irish prospectors Paddy Hannan, Tom Flanagan and Dan Shea found alluvial gold in 1893, this stark and isolated landscape on the edge of the Nullarbor Plain was the domain of the Ballardong Noongar people. Thousands of prospectors soon descended and houses, shops, pubs and brothels were built. The town of Kalgoorlie was gazetted in 1894 and Boulder, just nearby, in 1896. The region became the epicentre of WA's mining economy and remains so today. See what the early miners endured on a tour of Hannans North Tourist Mine, one of the area's first registered mines.
The twin mining towns became the city of Kalgoorlie-Boulder in 1989. Kalgoorlie’s Hannan Street is lined with the grand facades of turn-of-the-century architecture constructed as the city’s coffers flourished. Pop into the 1897 Palace Hotel for a cold beer and a taste of the past or immerse yourself in gold-mining history at the Museum of the Goldfields. Both centres have beautiful town halls – Boulder’s is home to the Goldfields War Museum (pictured). The biggest wow will come from a gawp at the Super Pit from the lookout. One of the world’s largest open pit gold mines, and the biggest gold mine in Australia, it's part of the so-called Golden Mile where Hannan first struck lucky.
An ex-industrial port-turned-vibrant coastal city on the Bellarine Peninsula, Geelong oozes character from its redeveloped waterfront to its imposing 19th-century bluestone buildings. Geelong Customs house and Geelong Gaol, which opened in 1853 and closed in 1991, are two of its most impressive heritage sites. Some of its architectural treasures are now home to charming places to eat, drink and stay. The 1920s Geelong wool mill is one – the heritage-listed building has been given a new lease of life as Little Creatures' East Coast brewery and bar. Geelong was once known as the 'wool centre of the world' and you can knit together its history at the surprisingly fascinating National Wool Museum.
Geelong is also the place for a dose of seaside nostalgia. Take a turn on the Geelong Carousel, a gorgeous hand-carved wooden fairground ride built in 1892, and stroll along its pier. An industrial pier was first built here in the 1850s, which was rebuilt and renamed the Cunningham Pier in 1929. Look out for the colourful carved bollards as you pootle around the waterfront – these 104 painted characters were fashioned from old timber pier pylons. You can really embed yourself in the local history by staying at one of Victoria’s oldest pastoral properties, Moranghurk, just out of town. This once-huge sheep station was founded in 1847 and its heritage bluestone shearer’s quarters have been restored as delightful rural hideaways.
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Set on Encounter Bay in the Fleurieu Peninsula, Victor Harbor was built on the lands of the Ramindjeri and Ngarrindjeri people who knew it as Wirramulla. It was first spied by British explorer Matthew Flinders in 1802 and settlers established two whaling stations here. It was named Victor Harbor in 1838 after the HMS Victor which had surveyed the harbour. A few decades later it became the region’s main ocean port for transporting the wheat and wool shipped down the Murray River to Goolwa and freighted on by train. Navigate yourself around the centre on a heritage walking trail. It starts at the 1866 Harbourmaster and Deputy Collector Customs House and takes in 38 heritage sites.
Aside from whale watching, one of the most popular things to do in Victor Harbor is to catch the horse-drawn tram over the causeway to rugged Granite Island. Drawn by Clydesdale horses, the tramway began operating in 1894. An iconic landmark, the old heritage-listed causeway was decommissioned in 2022 due to safety concerns and a new one recently opened. The ends of the old structure are now viewing platforms. Carry on your journey into the past by boarding the heritage Cockle Train for a steam-rail ride along the high cliffs en route to Port Elliot and Goolwa where more heritage beauty awaits.
Rich in reefs, rainforest and heritage sites, Townsville demands exploring beyond its obvious natural highlights. Set on Cleveland Bay in northeast Queensland, Townsville grew up around a port that was built to service sugar plantations, gold mines and pastoral properties. Its centre has numerous heritage properties, including Townsville Brewing Co’s Brewpub on Flinders Street. This beauty of a 19th-century building started life as the Townsville post office and became a military communication HQ during the Second World War. The tropical city was America's largest overseas air base outside the UK and played a key role in the war in the Pacific.
There’s lots of military history all along the coast here. Seek it out at Kissing Point Fort and the Army Museum of North Queensland as well as the old quarantine station, built in 1915 on Cape Pallarenda headland and used in the war. You can uncover the history of the area’s Indigenous peoples and get a sense of what life was like for the early settlers in the tropics at the Museum of Tropical Queensland. More history lurks below the waves – dive boats go out from Townsville's harbour to explore the SS Yongala. The steamship sank off Townsville’s coast during a cyclone in 1911, killing all 122 people aboard. It was dubbed 'Townsville’s Titanic' at the time and only discovered in 1958.