The Victorian Goldfields
The conference features a tour of the Victorian Goldfields. In early 2025 the Australian Government added the Victorian Goldfields to Australia’s World Heritage Tentative List
The Victorian Goldfields: Extraordinary Landscapes of the Nineteenth Century Gold Rush
The gold rushes which occurred across the globe over the course of the nineteenth century played a role in shaping the modern world. Australia’s Victorian Goldfields is recognised as being at the heart of this transformational period of history as, during the second half of the century, spontaneous, overlapping mass-migrations of gold seekers – men, women and children – led to an unprecedented increase in global gold production, with the same quantity of gold being mined in just fifty years as in the previous three millennia. Gold was a democratic mineral, the possession of the legitimate finder.
It led to the rapid development in a short space of time of ‘instant’ cities, sophisticated towns, and infrastructure in remote territory. Gold rushes were also directly associated with a young and often radical immigrant population who wanted a democratic way of life. Most of the gold from the Victorian Goldfields found its way as bullion to London, a leading centre in an increasingly globalised world based on a truly international gold standard.
This gold not only helped to sustain the nineteenth century British Empire but also bankrolled a spectacular period of world trade and industrial and commercial expansion. Consistent with the global gold rush phenomenon, however, associated negative consequences included the dispossession and displacement of Indigenous peoples, racial discrimination, and devastating environmental impacts.
Australia’s Victorian Goldfields
The Victorian Goldfields represent the most extensive, coherent and best-surviving nineteenth century gold rush landscape in the world. It encompasses central and eastern Victoria, and features a mix of rural and urban settings.
Over thirty-five years ago, local communities came together to pursue recognition of the Victorian Goldfields, gaining the support of fifteen local governments (2019), the Victorian Government (2022) and the Australian Government (2025). Traditional Owners play a key role in nominating Country and maintaining ongoing cultural custodianship of the landscape.
Diverse geological riches
Gold is widely distributed across an extensive area of Victoria as a result of tectonic events hundreds of millions of years ago. Subsequent erosion revealed easily worked outcrops and alluvial deposits.
The distinctive ancient channels of gold known as “deep leads” and the gold veins in the deep quartz rocks were uncovered through mining.
Profound impacts on Traditional Owners
The losses, dispossessions and displacement of Traditional Owners started with the arrival of the first Europeans; due to the gold rush, colonial processes were accelerated in speed and scale.
The First Peoples called the land “Upside-down Country”. However, their skills and deep knowledge of Country were vital to the migrant gold-seekers.
A global influx of immigrants
Hundreds of thousands of men, women and children from Great Britain, Ireland, China, Europe, the Americas and the Pacific Islands flocked to the Victorian Goldfields. Most stayed and established new lives.
Source: Flemington Melbourne, Samuel Charles Brees, c.1856. State Library Victoria
Technological innovation and remarkable urban development
Preserved mining landscapes include shallow alluvial sites, deep lead mining areas, quartz mines and major infrastructure crucial for supporting mining and population growth.
The significant presence of women and families shaped settlement patterns. The flow of wealth led to the rapid transformation of the landscape and the creation of architecturally distinguished cities.
A plan for regional regeneration
The Victorian Goldfields World Heritage Master Plan is designed to encourage deeper, more meaningful engagement with the region’s culture, heritage and environments. It ensures that the benefits of the World Heritage bid are shared equitably with people and communities from across the 15 local government areas and encourages visitation to sites big and small across the region.
It reflects the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, UNESCO’s Historic Urban Landscape approach, and the World Heritage Journeys and World Heritage Sustainable Tourism Programmes with the aim of creating Australia’s first World Heritage Journeys destination.
Australia ICOMOS and the City of Ballarat are proud to acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of the land which includes Ballarat today, the Wadawurrung and Dja Dja Wurrung People, and recognise their continuing connection to the land and waterways.
We pay our respects to all Elders, past and present, and extend this to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People.