Why we're marvellous
Riding high
✔ The city of cool, voted the friendliest city in the world and crowned with the world's coolest neighborhood ↗ - Yarraville - now boasts the coolest street in the world ↗
✔ OMG coffee by the world's best baristas.
✔ Smashed-avo-on-toast capital of the world
✔ Pizza, paella and other foodie-drooling dishes voted best in the world.
✔ Oh-so gorgeous, Instagram-breaking lanes with the world's best street artists.
✔ Action-packed arts and entertainment, live music, sport, shopping - living.
✔ You. Melburnians like you with dynamic can-do, pitch-in energy are the heartbeat that helps Keep Melbourne Marvellous!
Keep on being marvellous you.
Marvellous lives here
Marvellous Melbourne was first coined in 1885 by visiting London journalist George Augustus Sala, raving about - what was then - the richest city in the world, thanks to the discovery of gold in Victoria in the mid 1880s.
The phrase captured imaginations and has endured.
It's in our DNA.
Marvellous then, marvellous now.
Born to be marvellous
For thousands of year before European settlers founded modern Melbourne on 30 August 1835, five Kulin Nation groups lived across what is now metropolitan and greater Melbourne.
They are the First People, Traditional Custodians of the land: The Wurundjeri (Woi Wurrung), Boon Wurrung, Taungurong, Djajawurrung and the Wathaurung.
Our city's fascinating Indigenous history and culture is even more reason to #KeepMelbourneMarvellous
We're gunning for No 1
Don't get smug, Vienna. Melbourne won't stop until trophy No 8 sits in our cabinet. We like even numbers.
Crowned World's Most Liveable City seven years straight, we got beat by Austria's capital.
We've licked our wounds, nibbled pie called humble only to find it spoils our single-origin-estate espresso.
It's time for comeback-kid city to snatch back its trophy.
World capital of cool: Smith St, Collingwood
Yarraville voted one of the world's coolest suburbs
Friendliest city world title - even in lockdown
During bonkers COVID lockdowns, Melbourne scores the friendliest city award ↗
Because we're heart and soul.
Richmond - voted one of the world's coolest neighbourhoods
Lockdown hasn't stopped Richmond getting named the coolest neighborhood in Australia - and one of the world's top ten.
Bravo. Take a bow.
This is more proof Melbourne will roar back.
Richmond, you're on our list to visit for smashed-avo on toast when lockdown ends.
The first map of Melbourne's settlement
It shows the since-gone Yarra Falls, Batman's Hill (now Southern Cross Station) and other marvellous features of fledgling Melbourne.
The State Library of Victoria's Senior Librarian Sarah Ryan explains the astonishing sketches and watercolours by Melbourne's first-appointed surveyor Robert Russell, in this Treasures of the Library video.
Smart city, courageous city
We're a trailblazing leader in science, education, technology, research and architecture - beauty and geek in one.
The drive for excellence, innovation and development are hallmarks of our universities, research institutes, hospitals, medical centres, businesses and commercial operators.
Invented in Melbourne
We gave the world the bionic ear, "black box" flight recorder, Kiwi shoe polish, Aspro (asprin), Dim Sim, electric drill, Hills Hoist, latex gloves, reading machine for the blind, influenza drug Zanamivir, plastic-polymer money and tinnie beer can.
Guts, grit and determination
We push boundaries, challenge convention and love a game-changer. Visionary Melburnians have what it takes: guts, grit and determination.
Smarts helped make us marvellous and will help Keep Melbourne Marvellous!
City of secrets
It's what you can't see that makes Melbourne special, the hidden Melbourne: tucked-away alleys, nondescript basements, atmospheric lanes, open-air rooftops, no-name bars, diabolically hard-to-find jazz clubs, hole-in-the-wall cafes and achingly gorgeous theatres.
Down a cobblestone lane, up a staircase, along a narrow street, you'll find Melbourne's soul.
Foodies taking over your suburb
And always, an unforgettable experience.
Catch a must-see blockbuster show or major event but the real fun starts afterwards at your fave tuck-away down a street-art-laced alley, hangin' and sippin' cocktails with your ready-to-party besties.
The trend is unstoppable, with more and more neighborhoods getting hit by the foodie stick and chic, exciting eateries and sip-and-sup venues opening in oh-so-Melbourne unpredictable spaces.
Social reforms trailblazer
Worlds’ first eight-hour work day
In 1856 Melbourne workers successfully campaigned for the world's first eight hour work day.
Shrimpton shocks Melburnians
British model Jean Shrimpton shocked Flemington Racecourse by wearing a miniskirt in 1965. It was the beginning of Melbourne fashionista - a city embracing style, design and looking oh-so fab.
World’s first gay and lesbian radio station
Melbourne’s Rainbow Radio was the world’s first gay and lesbian radio station.
Women's rights
Melbourne women crusaded for suffrage and equality almost since the city's founding.
Melbourne Uni first to admit women
The University of Melbourne was the first university to admit women, opening its doors to female undergraduates in 1879.
Indigenous rights
Melbourne and Victoria is leading the country in working towards a treaty with, and self-determination for, Aboriginal Victorians.
Marvellous and inventive
How long have you got to learn about what Melbourne gave to the world?
Here's two: icons as Melbourne as CBD bluestone footpaths.