Yarra River

The Yarra River is a perennial river in south-central Victoria, Australia.

Its lower stretches are where Melbourne, Victoria's state capital, was established in 1835. The river flows 242 km west through the Yarra Valley, which opens out into plains, travels through Greater Melbourne before ultimately emptying into Hobsons Bay, in northernmost Port Phillip Bay.

The river was called Birrarung by the Wurundjeri people, who inhabited the Yarra Valley and the majority of Central Victoria. European settlers later renamed it "Yarra Yarra" in 1835, but it was a mistranslation of another Wurundjeri term, Yarro-yarro, meaning "ever-flowing".

Before 8000 BC, the Yarra River was connected with other present-day Port Phillip Bay tributaries such as Little River, Werribee, Kororoit Patterson, and drained directly through a narrow gap known as the "Rip" into a bay of the Great Australian Bight on the west side of a prehistoric land bridge called the Bassian Plain which later submerged into the Bass Strait.

The area surrounding the Yarra River was first inhabited by the Boonwurrung and Wurundjeri peoples of the Kulin nation. The river was an important resource for Indigenous Australians and several sites along the river and its tributaries were important meeting places where corroborees were held.

The Yarra River is contaminated with heavy metals and, as a result, fish and