Canberra —
Canberra began life on the back foot.
Unlike Australia’s other major cities, it’s not on the ocean. It isn’t rich from opal mining. It doesn’t have an opera house.
Australia’s capital city was designed to settle an argument.
According to the Australian Constitution, enacted in 1901, the capital city had to be at least 100 miles away from Sydney (the then-biggest and most populous city) to keep Melbourne (the initial seat of power and home to parliament) happy. And thus in 1911 a mostly abandoned plot of land in rural New South Wales became Canberra, the “bush capital” of a young country still defining its identity.
