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The County of Bourke is one of the 37 counties of Victoria which are part of the Lands administrative divisions of Australia, used for land titles. It is the oldest and most populous county in Victoria and contains the city of Melbourne. Like other counties in Victoria, it is subdivided into parishes. The county was named after General Sir Richard Bourke, the Governor of New South Wales between 1831 and 1837. [1] It is bordered by the Werribee River in the west, the Great Dividing Range in the north, Port Phillip in the south, and by Dandenong Creek, a small part of the Yarra River, and the Plenty River in the east. The county was proclaimed in 1853.
Lands administrative divisions of Australia are the cadastral divisions of Australia for the purposes of identification of land to ensure security of land ownership. Most states term these divisions as counties, parishes, hundreds, and other terms. The eastern states of Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania were divided into counties and parishes in the 19th century, although the Tasmanian counties were renamed land districts in the 20th century. Parts of South Australia (south-east) and Western Australia (south-west) were similarly divided into counties, and there were also five counties in a small part of the Northern Territory. However South Australia has subdivisions of hundreds instead of parishes, along with the Northern Territory, which was part of South Australia when the hundreds were proclaimed. There were also formerly hundreds in Tasmania. There have been at least 600 counties, 544 hundreds and at least 15,692 parishes in Australia, but there are none of these units for most of the sparsely inhabited central and western parts of the country.
Victoria is a state in south-eastern Australia. Victoria is Australia's smallest mainland state and its second-most populous state overall, making it the most densely populated state overall. Most of its population lives concentrated in the area surrounding Port Phillip Bay, which includes the metropolitan area of its state capital and largest city, Melbourne, Australia's second-largest city. Victoria is bordered by Bass Strait and Tasmania to the south, New South Wales to the north, the Tasman Sea to the east, and South Australia to the west.
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia and Oceania. Its name refers to an urban agglomeration of 2,080.5 km2 (803.3 sq mi), comprising a metropolitan area with 31 municipalities, and is also the common name for its city centre. The city occupies much of the coastline of Port Phillip bay and spreads into the hinterlands towards the Dandenong and Macedon ranges, Mornington Peninsula and Yarra Valley. It has a population of approximately 5 million, and its inhabitants are referred to as "Melburnians".
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Unlike counties in England and in the United States, Australian counties serve no administrative or political function. Rather, counties exist for purposes of land ownership. For example, property titles in Lands administrative divisions of Australia are often listed as being situated within a parish and county. For political subdivisions, Australia employs the Local Government Area (LGA) system — which includes shires, districts, and city councils — as the third and lowest tier of government (the States and territories of Australia being the second tier and the Federal Government being the highest tier).
The counties of England are areas used for different purposes, which include administrative, geographical, cultural and political demarcation. The term 'county' is not clearly defined and can apply to similar or the same areas used by each of these demarcation structures. These different types of county each have a more formal name but are commonly referred to just as 'counties'. The current arrangement is the result of incremental reform.
In the United States, a county is an administrative or political subdivision of a state that consists of a geographic region with specific boundaries and usually some level of governmental authority. The term "county" is used in 48 U.S. states, while Louisiana and Alaska have functionally equivalent subdivisions called parishes and boroughs, respectively.
Local government in Australia is the third tier of government in Australia administered by the states and territories, which in turn are beneath the federal tier. Local government is not mentioned in the Constitution of Australia and two referenda in the 1970s and 1980s to alter the Constitution relating to local government were unsuccessful. Every state government recognises local government in their respective constitutions. Unlike Canada or the United States, there is only one level of local government in each state, with no distinction such as cities and counties.
The Melbourne and County of Bourke Police was the name for the police force in the area before 1853. The County of Bourke was used on the name of the electoral roll in 1845. [2] There was also the Bourke County Court in the 1850s, [3] which became the County Court of Victoria. Melbourne is also referenced as being in "Bourke county" in the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition . [4]
The County Court of Victoria is the principal trial court in Victoria, with approximately 70 judges hearing up to 12,000 cases annually.
The Encyclopædia Britannica, Eleventh Edition (1910–11), is a 29-volume reference work, an edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica. It was developed during the encyclopaedia's transition from a British to an American publication. Some of its articles were written by the best-known scholars of the time. This edition of the encyclopedia, containing 40,000 entries, is now in the public domain, and many of its articles have been used as a basis for articles in Wikipedia. However, the outdated nature of some of its content makes its use as a source for modern scholarship problematic. Some articles have special value and interest to modern scholars as cultural artifacts of the 19th and early 20th centuries.
