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Werribee

suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 1, 2026
Entity authorityQ2563357 ↗
Source-derived summary

Werribee is a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 32 km (20 mi) south-west of Melbourne's Central Business District, located within the local government area of the City of Wyndham. Werribee recorded a population of 50,027 at the 2021 census.

Werribee was established as an agricultural settlement in the 1850s, originally named Wyndham and later renamed Werribee (derived from the Aboriginal name meaning "backbone" or "spine") in 1904. The suburb is situated on its namesake the Werribee River, approximately halfway between Melbourne and Geelong, on the Princes Highway. It is the administrative centre of the City of Wyndham local government area and is the City's most populous centre. Werribee is part of the Greater Melbourne metropolitan area and is included in the capital's population statistical division.

Since the 1990s, the suburb has experienced rapid suburban growth into surrounding greenfield land, becoming a commuter town in the Melbourne–Geelong growth corridor. Due to this urban sprawl, Wyndham and its suburbs have merged into the Melbourne conurbation. In recent years, Werribee has undergone development which has seen the growth of high-rise buildings within the city centre.

The suburb is best known for its major tourist attractions, which include the former estate of wealthy pastoralist Thomas Chirnside, known as Werribee Park, the Victoria State Rose Garden, the Werribee Park National Equestrian Centre, and the Werribee Open Range Zoo.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Werribee” is suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Werribee, suburb and Melbourne, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2021, 1904—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. For this dossier, Werribee, suburb and Melbourne is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 1, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2563357. VIAF identifies the subject as 125498967. The Library of Congress control number is n81066501. Authority coordinates are -37.900, 144.664. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2021 and 1904.

Critical limits

A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Werribee”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Werribee primary sources, Werribee archive and Werribee research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Werribee”?
  2. Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
  3. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
Subject index

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Werribee” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.