Local Information - Canberra & Surrounds

Canberra is the capital city of Australia, located in the Australian Capital Territory in the south-east of New South Wales. It is a planned city, with national monuments, museums, and galleries all built around large man-made lakes. A bush capital, Canberra is also a great place to enjoy the outdoors, with excellent cycling, gardens, parks, bushwalking and nature reserves.

The design by architect Walter Burley Griffin features geometric motifs such as circles, hexagons and triangles, centred around axes aligned with significant landmarks. It was heavily influenced by the garden city movement, incorporating significant areas of natural vegetation, and located on the shores of Lake Burley Griffin which divides central Canberra.

The central shopping and commercial area, known as "Civic", on the north side and the parliamentary triangle and embassy area is on the south side. Many national institutions are located in Canberra, such as the national Parliament, the High Court of Australia, the National Museum of Australia, the Australian War Memorial, the National Library and the National Gallery of Australia.

There are suburbs surrounding central Canberra, and also suburbs surrounding several outlying town centres. These town centres are Belconnen and Gungahlin to the north, and Tuggeranong and Woden to the south. The ACT has a population of about 350,000 people (400,000 including neighbouring Queanbeyan).

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org and http://wikitravel.org