Canberra Facts for Kids | Bush Capital

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Canberra is the capital city of Australia. As for the country’s capital, there was a competition between Australia’s two biggest cities i.e. Melbourne and Sydney but Canberra was subsequently chosen in 1908. Canberra is unique because it is a planned city of Australia just like Washington, D.C. Each year the second Monday of March is a public holiday in Canberra in order to mark the official naming of Canberra. This holiday is known as Canberra Day. Apart from English, the other languages spoken by different inhabitants include Spanish, Italian, Mandarin, Cantonese and Vietnamese. Now let’s explore more about this wonderful Australian city!

Nickname: Bush Capital

Significance: Capital city

Status: Largest city of Australia (Population-wise)

Formed: March 12, 1913

Origin and Brief History

  • According to archaeologists, the city was colonized for the very first time by humans in about 21,000 years back.
  • The city derives its name from the word ‘Kambera’. Kambera is a word of an extinct language called Gundungurra and it was spoken by the aboriginals of Australia. It means ‘meeting place’.
  • The other aboriginals of Canberra are Ngarigo, Wandandian, Walgulu, gandangara and Wiradjuri. But one group of people having great influence in this city are Ngunwal people.
  • In 1820s, the Europeans came here.
  • In March 1913, the city was officially named by a British woman named Gertrude Mary Denman (also known as Trudie). She was also the wife of Australian Governor-General Lord Denman.

Geography and Climate

  • It is situated near an Australian mountain range called The Brindabellas.
  • The city has an elevation of about 1,900 feet (580 meters).
  • The highest point of Canberra is Mount Majura. The elevation of this mountain is about 2,920 feet (890 meters).
  • The highest temperature ever recorded in this city is 42.2°C (108.0°F). It was occurred in February 1968.
  • The lowest temperature of this city is −10.0°C (14.0°F). It occurred in July 1971.
  • The name of the architect who designed Canberra is Walter Burley Griffin. He was an American architect.

Interesting Facts about Canberra

  • It is the biggest inland city of Australia.
  • It ranks eighth in Australia in terms of population.
  • A person who lives in this city is known as ‘Canberran’.
  • St John the Baptist Church is the oldest structure of Canberra.
  • The last time Canberra had a snowfall was in 1968.
  • Almost 75 percent of the waste generated in this city is recycled.
  • About 28.6 percent of the inhabitants of Canberra were born in other countries.
  • Just about 10.7 percent of the Canberrans is above 65 years of age.
  • About 45 percent of the Canberrans have undergraduate academic degree.
  • About 29 percent of the residents claim to have no religion at all.
  • About 40.6 percent of the students in Canberra study from private schools which mean the highest percentage of such students in the entire continent.
  • One of the largest and most famous music festivals of this city was called Stone Day. It was celebrated every year at University of Canberra.
  • The Japanese city of Nara and Beijing (China) both have a sister-city relationship with this city.
  • Every day, an average Canberran walks for about 26 minutes.
  • The city has a highest number of cyclists in the whole country. About 87,000 Canberrans ride a bicycle.
  • About 88 percent of Canberrans have access to home computer which it the highest percentage in Australia.
  • About 74 percentage of residents have broadband internet connection which is also the country’s highest.

Read: Australia Facts for Kids

 

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2 responses to “Canberra Facts for Kids | Bush Capital”

  1. poo Avatar
    poo

    I LIK THIS

    Reply
  2. Kate Avatar
    Kate

    Firstly, thank you for taking an interest in Canberra and especially for including the indigenous Australians in the write up. However as a local who grew up in Canberra there are a few inaccuracies. As this is intended for kids, and called ‘fun facts’, I felt I should share some with you, so you can update the page.

    There wasn’t a competition between Melbourne and Sydney but a dispute and Canberra was chosen as a compromise.

    The language spoken is English, there are a lot of people here who are not Australian born citizens who are multi-lingual, though you wouldn’t want to come here expecting to speak any other language with the locals.

    Canberra is one of the smallest capital cities in Australia, in both population and size. Making it the 6th out of the 8 capital cities. In regards to states by population density, while Canberra has the ‘highest population density per capita’ it’s also the smallest state/territory. So realistically, Sydney has the highest population density for a city in Australia but not by state. For reference, New South Wales is 800,642 sq km while ACT is 2,358 sq km.

    Anecdote: We barely have “peak” traffic times, unlike Sydney that has a couple hours of, peak traffic each day, Canberra has maybe 15-30 minutes of ‘peak traffic’ which might set you back 5mins. By contrast when I lived in Sydney, peak traffic, could add an hour or more to your 30km journey.

    The traditional custodians of the land are the Ngunnawal peoples, though you did get it right that there is cross over and close relationship between other indigenous communities in the area and surrounds. The Name of Canberra did come from the indigenous word for “meeting place” and Canberra was also a significant meeting place for many indigenous communities.

    Gundungurra is the location name of an aboriginal community west of Sydney in the Blue Mountains. The Ngunnawal language is the traditional Aboriginal language of spoken by the Ngunnawal peoples. The European settlers forbid the local language to be spoken, so much is lost but there is a significant effort in place to try and revitalise the language.

    The first European settlers came to Canberra in 1823 and called it the limestone plains.

    Mount Majura is the highest within the metro area but Mount Bimberi is the highest mountain in the capital, with an elevation of 1,913 metres.

    The highest temperature has been updated, reaching 44 degrees in 2020.

    I think there was some confusion with this in the first paragraph, there was a competition, though it was for the design of the City, which was won by Walter Burley Griffin and he is also American. Fun fact about Canberra, there are no true lakes in Canberra, they are all actually man made dams.

    Yes we are, Canberrans, but since Covid, a new nick name of Ken-behrans came about. When ACT’s Chief Minister Andrew Barr was giving a speech, and thanking Canberrans for their efforts embracing the lockdown and doing the right thing, the voice to text caption had an error that wasn’t fixed and made it to TV screens. It became a massive meme for locals who were, bored in the house, and in the house bored. Ken-Behrans is still used in social circumstances to date.

    I’m not going to fact check everything, only what I know at this point. In recent times we have had snow almost every year, and every year since I moved back from Sydney we’ve had hail. Literally we had snow this year in 2025 and a decent dump in Tuggeranong last year. It’s also known to snow in Belconnen, funnily enough the city centre tends to miss out on snowfall.

    I’ve never heard of that music festival and I grew up in Canberra. I know of Spilt Milk and Groove in the Moo as the main festivals in Canberra.

    Yes Canberra is the sister-city to Nara. I don’t know about Beijing.

    I would be curious where the walking stat comes from. The preferred method of transport in Canberra is by car and I would say like many of the statistics on this page, a lot has changed.

    It would be great to have some references for where you found this information and a date for the article, though I have a feeling AI had a lot to do with it. :/

    Reply

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