Talk:Melbourne

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Distance from other cities in Infobox

in the Infobox, it has the distances between Melbourne and other cities as the great circle distance but the Infobox says to do road distance AuspolScribe (talk) 02:30, 14 February 2026 (UTC)

What do you mean by "the Infobox says to do road distance"? HiLo48 (talk) 03:03, 14 February 2026 (UTC)

In visual editing mode when you go onto the Infobox and go to the distances fields it says "Distance from this location to location # via road" or something like that AuspolScribe (talk) 07:34, 15 February 2026 (UTC)

That's good. I'm an old-timer happy to not use Visual editor, so I don' see that. Feel free to correct the distances. HiLo48 (talk) 23:29, 15 February 2026 (UTC)

@HiLo48: The documentation that @AuspolScribe: sees in the VisualEditor via TemplateData is from {{Infobox Australian place}}, which does indeed say that road distances should be used rather than great circle distances. We're using road distances already (I can get close enough to the given figures by poking around on Google Maps) and were already using them before this section was written; it was just that the references didn't match the text. I've therefore removed the old reference links; they weren't even working. Graham87 (talk) 09:05, 9 May 2026 (UTC)

Batmania?

Batmania has got to be explained, surely. Afterbrunel (talk) 16:36, 31 March 2026 (UTC)

The name appears in a paragraph that begins with Batman's name in another context, after five earlier mentions of his name. It is also immediately followed by a good source. I think it's enough. HiLo48 (talk)

Actually the source says it was previously known under various informal names of which "The Settlement" was the most common. I have made the change to conform to what the source actually says. "Batmania" sounds like a joke name that some wag made up. It isn't even mentioned in the Melbourne City Council source. The whole history section is terrible: based on old newspapers rather than scholarly academic sources. Aemilius Adolphin (talk) 03:55, 1 April 2026 (UTC)

I don't think it was intended as a joke. Tasmania was named in 1856, and Batmania is the same structure. HiLo48 (talk) 05:56, 1 April 2026 (UTC)

Urban and Metro Populations

The info box for Australian cities are outliers compared to cities around the world in that they don't separately list population, area and density by both Urban and Metro boundaries.

The way that information is currently presented is misleading, as it would suggest that Melbourne has a higher density than Sydney, or that Brisbane is the largest city in Australia by area. Including both provides the most useful and relevant information

The table below is based on Urban centres and Localities from the 2021 census and Regional Population for the 2024-25.

There could be argument about whether the urban population should be based on the 'Urban centres and Localities' or 'Significant Urban Areas', I prefer the former but either could be justified

	Population		Area		Density		Rank
City	Urban	Metro	Urban	Metro	Urban	Metro	Urban	Metro
Sydney	4,698,656	5,638,830	2,194	12,369	2,141	456	1st	1st
Melbourne	4,585,537	5,435,590	2,881	9,993	1,592	544	2nd	2nd
Brisbane	2,287,896	2,833,524	2,027	15,842	1,129	179	3rd	3rd
Perth	2,043,762	2,452,765	1,720	6,417	1,188	382	4th	4th
Adelaide	1,245,011	1,491,015	854	3,260	1,457	457	5th	5th
Canberra	452,670	484,630	393	2,358	1,152	206	7th	6th
Hobart	197,451	255,250	237	1,695	832	151	12th	7th
Darwin	122,207	159,284	240	3,168	509	50	16th	8th

~2026-20046-84 (talk) 23:30, 31 March 2026 (UTC)

"GDP"for Melbourne

An editor wishes to add GDP figures for Melbourne in the info box. The problems with this are: 1) there is no such thing as "GDP" for cities. The nearest concept is gross Regional product. 2) The estimates are for 2019 and therefore dated. 3) There is no evidence that this is a reliable source. It is a self-published report from a commercial consultant. 4) The info box is supposed to be a summary of key facts from the article. There is no discussion of this in the article. @Василенко1990 Aemilius Adolphin (talk) 02:53, 24 April 2026 (UTC)

Clarification of "Humid Subtropical" (Trewartha system) and "Mean" monthly temperature needed

I understand that the Wikipedia article labels Melbourne as Cf in the Trewartha System due to mean temperatures in all months being above 10˚C. However, the table shows that while mean daily maximum temperatures are above 10˚C for all months, the same is not true for mean temperatures for a month (i.e. the mean of all temperature reading at all times of day during the month, not just the daily maximums), which is below 10˚C for July. I can find no source that says the Trewartha system applies to mean daily maximum temperatures, and a source I found from Oregon State University seems to imply it is the mean monthly temperature, not the mean daily maximum for a month. It seems to me that we may have made an error in assigning the classification. Can anyone shed more light on this? Fh1 (talk) 08:46, 2 July 2026 (UTC)

You're right; Trewartha's classes are about monthly mean temperatures, not daily mean maximums, and July is 9.6˚C, below 10˚C. The text on Climate of Melbourne should absolutely be amended. However, Trewartha's subtropical designation applies to climates with 8, not 12, months or more of temperatures above 10˚C, so Cf still applies. "Subtropical" for Trewartha refers to the zone with warm evergreen-mixed vegetation of the warm-temperate to tropical transition, and while month-counting is possibly not the best way to measure this transition, Melbourne being there is right regardless. Uness232 (talk) 09:31, 2 July 2026 (UTC)