Skip to content
Mixroutes
Canberra
Capital city of Australia

Canberra

Canberra is the capital city of Australia and the largest population centre in the Australian Capital Territory.

Plan a trip to Canberra→From Sydney (Mascot)

With an estimated population of 484,630 as of 2025, Canberra is Australia's largest inland city and the eighth-largest Australian city by population. The city occupies most of the northern quadrant of the Australian Capital Territory, and its urban sprawl borders the state of New South Wales to the northwest, northeast and southeast. The Brindabellas are located south and west of the city, and form the northern part of the Australian Alps, the country's highest mountain range.

Get in

Getting to Canberra

  1. 01
    Canberra Airport

    It serves Australia's capital city, and many nearby towns across the border in New South Wales.

  2. 02
    Canberra Railway Station in Kingston
See

Worth seeing

Canberra, as the national capital of Australia, contains a lot of government buildings, and many of them are often open for tours. By far the most significant one is Parliament House in Capital Hill, but other important buildings include the High Court of Australia, Old Parliament House, the Government House, the Royal Australian Mint and The Lodge, though not all of them are always open to the public.

Do

Things to do

See the districts articles for more listings. Ride Canberra's Mountain Bike Trails: There are several locations around Canberra to ride mountain bicycles, many of which are considered some of the best in Australia. See Canberra Off Road Cyclists (CORC) for locations. Canberra is also home to the largest 24-hour Mountain Bike Race in the world, held in early October each year.

Eat

Where to eat

Canberra has many fine eateries, but beware – many will be closed on Sundays. There are large clusters of restaurants in Civic, Braddon, Dickson, Kingston and Manuka. An unusual feature of the Canberra dining scene is that some of the city's best restaurants are hidden away in small suburban shopping centres – locals often nominate these as their favourites. All public buildings territory-wide are smoke-free.

How locals move

Getting around Canberra the local way

  • Get inIt is possible to use Canberra's off-road cycleway network to reach the airport.
  • Get inOn some days, it is possible to make a day trip by train from Sydney and spend 5–6 hours in Canberra.
  • Get aroundBicycles are a practical way to get around Canberra while visiting, and will get you to most attractions using a well-developed network of off-road cycle paths and bike freeways.

From Wikivoyage: Canberra, CC BY-SA. Not yet checked by us. Last edited 2026-09.

Text adapted from Wikipedia and Wikivoyage, CC BY-SA 4.0. Photograph: Wikimedia Commons (see file page), Wikimedia Commons.