Bal­larat is one of the most sig­nif­i­cant Vic­to­rian era boom­towns in Aus­tralia. Gold was dis­cov­ered at Poverty Point on 18 August 1851, and the dis­trict was found to be a rich allu­vial field where gold could eas­ily be extracted. News of the finds inten­si­fied the Vic­to­rian gold rush bring­ing over 10,000migrants to the city from around the world within a year and trans­form­ing it from a sta­tion to a major set­tle­ment in the newly pro­claimed Colony of Vic­to­ria. Australia’s first gold stamp mill was estab­lished at Bal­larat in 1854.

It was the site of the Eureka Rebel­lion, the only armed civil upris­ing in Aus­tralian his­tory, which took place on 3 Decem­ber 1854 at the Eureka Min­ing Lead, and the event is con­tro­ver­sially iden­ti­fied with the birth of democ­racy in Australia.

Many sig­nif­i­cant Aus­tralian cul­tural icons are also a legacy of Ballarat’s gold rush boom. The rebellion’s sym­bol, the Eureka Flag has become a national sym­bol and is held at the Bal­larat Fine Art Gallery, Australia’s old­est and largest regional gallery. Other nation­ally sig­nif­i­cant her­itage struc­tures include the Bal­larat Botan­i­cal Gar­dens, estab­lished 1857, the best exam­ple of a regional botanic gar­dens in Aus­tralia with the great­est con­cen­tra­tion of pub­lic stat­u­ary­in­clud­ing the offi­cial Prime Min­is­ters Avenue; the longest run­ning lyric the­atre build­ing, Her Majesty’s, estab­lished 1875; the first munic­i­pal obser­va­tory, estab­lished 1886; and the ear­li­est and longest memo­r­ial avenue, the Avenue of Hon­our, estab­lished between 1917 and 1919.

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