Wimmera River Viewing Deck

About Horsham, VIC

Horsham () is a regional city in the Wimmera region of western Victoria, Australia. Located on a bend in the Wimmera River, Horsham is approximately 300 kilometres (190 mi) northwest of the state capital Melbourne. As of the 2021 census, Horsham had a population of 20,429. It is the most populous city in Wimmera, and the main administrative centre for the Rural City of Horsham local government area. It is the eleventh largest city in Victoria after Melbourne, Geelong, Ballarat, Bendigo, Wodonga, Mildura, Shepparton, Warrnambool, Traralgon, and Wangaratta. An early settler James Monckton Darlot named the settlement after the town of Horsham in his native England. It grew throughout the latter 19th and early 20th centuries as a centre of Western Victoria's wheat and wool industry, becoming the largest city in the Wimmera and Western Victoria by the early 1910s. Horsham was declared a city in 1949 and was named Australia's Tidiest Town in 2001 and Victoria's Tidiest Town in 2021. == History == === Pre-colonisation === Recent archaeological research of rock shelters by La Trobe University in the Grampians found clear evidence of Aboriginal occupation 3–4,000 years ago, and the possibility of occupation up to 22,000 years ago. The rock shelters would have provided reliable access to water and a base to hunt megafauna on the plains of the Wimmera.