The City of Wagga Wagga, New South Wales.

City of Wagga Wagga is a Local Government Area in New South Wales, Australia, in southern New South Wales. The floral emblem for the city is the Silver Banksia.

The Wagga Wagga City Council was formed from the amalgamation of City of Wagga Wagga with Mitchell and Kyeamba Shires in 1981.

It includes the suburbs of Ashmont, Bomen, Bourkelands, Boorooma, Cartwrights Hill, East Wagga, Estella, Forest Hill, Glenfield Park, Gumly Gumly, Kapooka, Kooringal, Lake Albert, Lloyd, Mount Austin, North Wagga, San Isidore, Tatton, Tolland, Turvey Park, and Wagga Wagga as well as the towns of Tarcutta, Ladysmith, Mangoplah, Uranquinty and Collingullie.

Wagga Wagga (informally called Wagga) is a city in New South Wales, Australia. Straddling the Murrumbidgee River, and with an urban population of 46,735 people, Wagga is the state's largest inland city and the country's fifth largest inland city, as well as an important agricultural, military, and transport hub of Australia. The city is located midway between the two largest cities in Australia, Sydney and Melbourne, and is the major regional centre for the Riverina and South West Slopes regions.

The central business district is focused around the commercial and recreational grid bounded by Best and Tarcutta Streets and the Murrumbidgee River and the Sturt Highway. The main shopping street of Wagga is Baylis Street which becomes Fitzmaurice Street at the northern end. The city is located in an alluvial valley and much of the city has a problem with urban salinity.

The original inhabitants of the Wagga Wagga region were the Wiradjuri people. In 1829, Charles Sturt became the first European explorer to visit the future site of the city. Squatters arrived soon after, leading to conflict with the indigenous inhabitants. The town, positioned on the site of a ford across the Murrumbidgee, was surveyed and gazetted as a village in 1849 and the town grew quickly after. In 1870, the town was gazetted as a municipality.

During the negotiations leading to the federation of the Australian colonies, Wagga Wagga was considered as a potential capital for the new nation. During World War I the town was the starting point for the Kangaroo recruitment march. The Great Depression and the resulting hardship saw Wagga Wagga become the centre of a secession movement for the Riverina region. Wagga Wagga became a garrison town during World War II with the establishment of a military base at Kapooka and Royal Australian Air Force bases at Forest Hill and Uranquinty. After the war, Wagga Wagga was proclaimed as a city in 1946 and new suburbs were developed to the south of the city. In 1982 the city was amalgamated with the neighbouring Kyeamba and Mitchell Shires to form the City of Wagga Wagga local government area.

Geography

Wagga Wagga is located at the eastern end of the Riverina region where the slopes of the Great Dividing Range flatten and form the Riverina plain. The city straddles the Murrumbidgee River, one of the great rivers of the Murray-Darling Basin and the city centre itself is located on the southern bank, protected by a levee from potential flooding.

The city sits almost midway between the largest cities in Australia being 452 kilometres southwest of Sydney and 456 kilometres northeast of Melbourne with the Sydney-Melbourne railway line passing through. The Sturt Highway, part of Australia's National Highway network, also passes through the city on its way from Adelaide to its junction with the main Sydney-Melbourne route, the Hume Highway, a further 45 kilometres east. This location astride some of the major transport routes in the nation has made Wagga Wagga an important heavy truck depot for a number of companies including Toll Holdings. Wagga Wagga itself is the major regional centre for the Riverina and for much of the South West Slopes regions, providing education, health and other services to a region extending as far as Griffith to the west, Cootamundra to the north and Tumut to the east.

Industry

Commercial

Wagga attracts people from all over the Riverina and southwestern New South Wales to its shopping facilities. It is the major support city for over 200,000 people who live across the region.

Wagga's shopping centres include two notable centres of metropolitan standards, Wagga Wagga Marketplace and Sturt Mall in the central business district, and suburban shopping centres such as the new South City Shopping Centre in Glenfield Park, the Lake Village Shopping Centre, Lake Albert, the Tolland Shopping Centre and Kooringal Mall in Kooringal. Wagga also has a large Home Base located on the Sturt Highway. Wagga's central business district, with both Baylis and Fitzmaurice Streets and other surrounding streets, offers hundreds of specialty retailers including national chains such as Big W, Myer and Target Country. The dairy company Fonterra (Formerly Murrumbidgee Dairy Products), is based on the Sturt Highway which is a supplier of dairy products in the Riverina, Other major industries include Cargill and Heinz which are located in the suburb of Bomen.