Gippsland

For the electoral district in the Australian House of Representatives, see Division of Gippsland. For the aircraft manufacturer, see GippsAero.

Gippsland is an economic rural region that occupies much of the south-eastern part of Victoria, Australia.

Covering an area of 41,556 square kilometres (16,045 sq mi), Gippsland lies to the east of the eastern suburbs of Greater Melbourne, to the north of Bass Strait, to the west of the Tasman Sea, to the south of the Black-Allan Line that marks part of the Victorian/New South Wales border, and to the east and southeast of the Great Dividing Range that lies within the Hume region and the Victorian Alps. The region is best known for its primary production such as mining, power generation and farming as well as its tourist destinations— Phillip Island, Wilsons Promontory, the Gippsland Lakes, Walhalla, the Baw Baw Plateau, and the Strzelecki Ranges.

As at the 2011 Australian census, the Gippsland region had a population of 255,718, that is generally broken down into the East Gippsland, South Gippsland, West Gippsland, and the Latrobe Valley statistical divisions. The principal centres of the region, in descending order of population, are Traralgon, Moe, Warragul, Morwell, Sale, Bairnsdale, Drouin, Leongatha, and Phillip Island.

History

The area was originally inhabited by Indigenous Australians of the Gunai nation and parts of the Bunurong nation. Following European settlement, Samuel Anderson, a Scottish immigrant and explorer, who had arrived in Hobart, Tasmania in 1830, established the third permanent settlement in Victoria at Bass in Gippsland in 1835. His business partner Robert Massie joined him in 1837. Both had worked for the Van Diemen's Land Company at Circular Head Tasmania. Samuel's brothers Hugh and Thomas arrived at Bass shortly after. Sealers and wattle bark gatherers had frequented the area earlier but had not settled.

Further European settlement began following two separate expeditions to the area. Angus McMillan led the first European expedition through the area between 1839 and 1840, naming the area "Caledonia Australis". This was followed in March 1840 by Polish explorer Paweł Edmund Strzelecki, who unknowingly led his expedition across the same terrain already traversed by McMillan, and gave his own names to many natural landmarks and places. Following these expeditions, the area was officially given the title of "Gippsland", a name chosen by Strzelecki in honour of the New South Wales Governor, George Gipps, his sponsor.

Geography

Regions of Gippsland
East West South Central Latrobe Valley

Old growth forests in East Gippsland

Gippsland is traditionally subdivided into four or five main sub–regions or districts:

• West Gippsland (roughly equivalent to the Shires of Cardinia and Baw Baw)
• South Gippsland (Bass Coast and South Gippsland Shires)
• the Latrobe Valley (Latrobe City and areas of Baw Baw to the north)
• East Gippsland (Shires of Wellington and East Gippsland).
• Sometimes a fifth region, Central Gippsland (corresponding approximately to the Shire of Wellington), is added to refer to the drier zone between the Gippsland Lakes and Yarram.

Climate

On the Avon River near Stratford

The climate of Gippsland is temperate and generally humid, except in the central region around Sale, where annual rainfall can be less than 600 millimetres (24 in). In the Strzelecki Ranges annual rainfall can be as high as 1,500 millimetres (59 in), while on the high mountains of East Gippsland it probably reaches similar levels – much of it falling as snow. In lower levels east of the Snowy River, mean annual rainfall is typically about 900–950 millimetres (35–37 in) and less variable than in the coastal districts of New South Wales. Mean maximum temperatures in lower areas range from 24 °C (75 °F) in January to 15 °C (59 °F) in July. In the highlands of the Baw Baw Plateau and the remote Errinundra Plateau, temperatures range from a maximum of 18 °C (64 °F) to a minimum of 8 °C (46 °F). However, in winter, mean minima in these areas can be as low as −4 °C (25 °F), leading to heavy snowfalls that often isolate the Errinundra Plateau between June and October.

Natural resources

See also: Energy in Victoria

Potato farming in the Thorpdale region

The soils in Gippsland are generally very infertile, being heavily deficient in nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium and calcium. Apart from frequently flooded areas, they are classed as Spodosols, Psamments and Ultisols. Consequently, heavy fertilisation is required for agriculture or pastoral development. Despite this, parts of Gippsland have become highly productive dairying and vegetable-growing regions: the region supplies Melbourne with most of its needs in these commodities. A few alluvial soils (chiefly near the Snowy) have much better native fertility, and these have always been intensively cultivated. In the extreme northeast is a small section of the Monaro Tableland used for grazing beef cattle.

Gippsland possesses very few deposits of metallic minerals (gold rushes in the nineteenth century around Foster, Buchan petered out quickly). However, the deep underground gold mines operated at Walhalla for a fifty-year period between 1863-1913. Gippsland has no deposits of major industrial nonmetallic minerals, but it does feature the world's largest brown coal deposits and, around Sale and offshore in the Bass Strait, some of the largest deposits of oil and natural gas in Australia.

Like the rest of Australia, the seas around Gippsland are of very low productivity as there is no upwelling due to the warm currents in the Tasman Sea. Nonetheless, towns such as Marlo and Mallacoota depended for a long time on the fishing of abalone, whose shells could fetch very high prices because of their use for pearls and pearl inlays.

Administration

Political representation

For the purposes of Australian federal elections for the House of Representatives, the Gippsland region is contained within all or part of the electoral divisions of Gippsland, McMillan, and Flinders.

For the purposes of Victorian elections for the Legislative Assembly, the Gippsland region is contained within all or part of the electoral districts of Bass, Gippsland East, Gippsland South, Morwell and Narracan.

Local government areas

The region contains six local government areas, which are:

Gippsland region LGA populations

Local government area	Area		Population (2011 census)	Source(s)
	km2	sq mi
Bass Coast Shire	864	334	29,614
Shire of Baw Baw	4,031	1,556	42,864
Shire of East Gippsland	20,941	8,085	42,196
Latrobe City	1,426	551	72,396
South Gippsland Shire	3,305	1,276	27,208
Shire of Wellington	10,989	4,243	41,440
Totals	41,556	16,045	255,718

Environmental protection

The Gippsland region contains the Alfred National Park, Baw Baw National Park, Coopracambra National Park, Croajingolong National Park, Errinundra National Park, Gippsland Lakes Coastal Park, Kinglake National Park, Lind National Park, Mitchell River National Park, Morwell National Park, Snowy River National Park, Tarra-Bulga National Park, The Lakes National Park, and Wilsons Promontory National Park.

See also

• Geography of Victoria
• Regions of Victoria
• Giant Gippsland earthworm
• Gippsland massacres
• White woman of Gippsland
• Old Gippstown