Qualla: Canberra

Canberra: Introduction

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Alex Proimos from Sydney, Australia, CC BY 2.0. The shortlist of names was magnificent and absurd. Before the new capital was christened in 1913, the public proposed "Sydmelperadbrisho" - a mash-up of the rival cities - along with "Wheatwoolgold" and "Kangaremu." In the end the planners chose Canberra, drawn from a word of the Ngambri and Ngunnawal peoples whose country this had always been. Sydney and Melbourne had spent years fighting over which should be the nation's capital, and at federation in 1901 the constitution settled it with a compromise: neither would win, and a brand-new city would rise on empty pasture in between. Critics called it a waste of good sheep country. They were not entirely wrong, and that tension - between the grand plan and the stubborn land - still defines the place.

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Image: Alex Proimos from Sydney, Australia | CC BY 2.0

Canberra: A City Drawn in Chicago

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Thennicke, CC BY-SA 4.0. In 1911 the young government held an international competition to design its capital from scratch, and more than 130 entries arrived from around the world. The winner, announced in May 1912, was Walter Burley Griffin, a landscape architect from Chicago who had worked in Frank Llo...

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Image: Thennicke | CC BY-SA 4.0

Canberra: The Bush Capital

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Bidgee, CC BY-SA 3.0. Canberra wears two faces. One is the planned capital of monuments and ministries; the other is what locals call the bush capital, where wild country presses right up against the suburbs. Kangaroos sometimes hop down Northbourne Avenue into the heart of the city. After dinner on a...

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Image: Bidgee | CC BY-SA 3.0

Canberra: A Town of Comings and Goings

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Shkuru Afshar, CC BY-SA 4.0. Around 480,000 people live here, and a great many of them did not grow up in the city. The classic Canberra story is to arrive for study or a posting with the federal government, stay a few years, and move on - so the population is forever cycling through, public servants and con...

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Image: Shkuru Afshar | CC BY-SA 4.0

Canberra: Watching the Sky

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit *Paul*, Public domain. The same emptiness that critics mocked turned out to be an asset for looking upward. Canberra's clear, dry, high-altitude air drew the science of the stars. In the hills southwest of the city, the Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex tracks spacecraft across the solar system...

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Image: *Paul* | Public domain