Cadastral divisions in Victoria are called counties, which are further subdivided into

parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christianity, Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest#Christianity, priest, often termed a parish pries ...

es and townships, for

cadastral A cadastre or cadaster ( ) is a comprehensive recording of the real estate or real property's metes and bounds, metes-and-bounds of a country.Jo Henssen, ''Basic Principles of the Main Cadastral Systems in the World,'/ref> Often it is represente ...

or land administration purposes. Cadastral divisions of county, parish and township form the basis for formal identification of the location of any piece of land in the state. There are 37 counties and 2004 parishes and 909 townships. Parishes were subdivided into sections of various sizes for sale as farming allotments, or designated as a town and then divided into sections and these subdivided into crown allotments. However, many parishes do not follow county borders, some being located in more than one county. Counties in

Victoria Victoria most commonly refers to: * Queen Victoria (1819–1901), Queen of the United Kingdom and Empress of India * Victoria (state), a state of Australia * Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, a provincial capital * Victoria, Seychelles, the capi ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

were gazetted in stages between 1849 and 1871 as Victoria was progressively opened up to

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. * British national identity, the characteristics of British people and culture ...

settlement. All parish boundaries were gazetted by 1890. In addition to identification of particular parcels of land by county, parish and other names, such parcels are also usually identified by reference to a lot number of a particular plan of

subdivision Subdivision may refer to: Arts and entertainment * Subdivision (metre), in music * ''Subdivision'' (film), 2009 * "Subdivision", an episode of ''Prison Break'' (season 2) * ''Subdivisions'' (EP), by Sinch, 2005 * "Subdivisions" (song), by Rush ...

or other certified plan or survey. Legal documents (such as grants, titles or transfers) that describe a particular parcel of land do so by reference to the county, parish, township (if there is one), section, crown allotment number, and certified plan number — for example: " County of Dalhousie, Parish of Lauriston, being 2 hectares, being Crown Allotment 2, Section 40"; or "Parish of Ballarat, County of Grant, Crown Allotment 29, Section 101, Township of Ballarat East, as shown on Certified Plan No. 105127" Under streamlined rules of the

Torrens title Torrens title is a land registration and land transfer system in which a state creates and maintains a register of land holdings, which serves as the Incontrovertible evidence, conclusive evidence (termed "Defeasible reasoning#Political and judic ...

in Australia, a parcel of land on a transfer, etc. can now be described by reference to the relevant volume-folio number on the Land Register, which is itself based on the cadastral descriptions described above. When searching for title details, for example online, searching by street address is also often available. In each case, titles continue to be based on the original cadastral descriptions. Unlike counties in the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

and the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

, Victoria's counties have no administrative or political function. County names have traditionally been used as names for Victorian electoral districts, although the boundaries of these districts seldom coincided with county boundaries.

History

Following the unauthorised settlement of settlers from Tasmania (then called

Van Diemen's Land Van Diemen's Land was the colonial name of the island of Tasmania during the European exploration of Australia, European exploration and colonisation of Australia in the 19th century. The Aboriginal Tasmanians, Aboriginal-inhabited island wa ...

) in the future Melbourne in 1835, in September 1836, Governor Bourke established the

Port Phillip District The Port Phillip District was an administrative division of the Colony of New South Wales from 9 September 1836 until 1 July 1851, when it was separated from New South Wales and became the Colony of Victoria. In September 1836, NSW Colonial Sec ...

of New South Wales. He also commissioned

Robert Hoddle Robert Hoddle (21 April 1794 – 24 October 1881) was a surveyor and artist. He was the first Surveyor-General of Victoria from 1851 to 1853. He was previously the Surveyor-in-Charge of the Port Phillip District from 1837 to 1851. He became ...

to make the first plan for the town. The plan was completed on 25 March 1837, and came to be known as the

Hoddle Grid The Hoddle Grid is the contemporary name given to the approximately grid of streets that form the Melbourne central business district, Australia. Bounded by Flinders Street, Spring Street, La Trobe Street, and Spencer Street, it lies at a ...

. The surveys were intended to prepare for land sales. The boundaries of the Port Phillip District were not settled until 1 July 1843, when a proclamation formalised the border as running from

Cape Howe Cape Howe is a coastal headland in eastern Australia, forming the south-eastern end of the Black-Allan Line, a portion of the border between New South Wales and Victoria. History Cape Howe was named by Captain Cook Captain James Cook ...

, to the nearest source of the Murray River, and then along the course of the Murray to the border with South Australia.

Land districts

Before the division of the Port Phillip District into counties, the colony was divided into land districts, as shown on an 1864 map. The land districts were used as the names for parts of the state where counties had yet to be proclaimed. The land districts included: * Bourke Land District (Melbourne area, including the County of Bourke) * Geelong (or Grant) Land District * Gipps Land District (name for the area today is still

Gippsland Gippsland () is a rural region in the southeastern part of Victoria, Australia, mostly comprising the coastal plains south of the Victorian Alps (the southernmost section of the Great Dividing Range). It covers an elongated area of east of th ...

) * Loddon Land District * Murray Land District * Normanby Land District * Western Land District * Wimmera Land District (the southern part still called the Wimmera today)

Proclamation of counties

Counties were proclaimed or changed in 1849, 1853, 1869, 1870 and 1871. The proclamation of counties of 1849 was made while Port Phillip District was part of New South Wales, while the others were made after the separation from NSW in 1851, to create the colony of Victoria. Earlier maps of

area in the eastern part of Victoria show proposed counties of Douro (a title of the

Duke of Wellington Duke is a male title either of a monarch ruling over a duchy, or of a member of royalty, or nobility. As rulers, dukes are ranked below emperors, kings, grand princes, grand dukes, and above sovereign princes. As royalty or nobility, they ar ...

), Bass, Haddington, Bruce, Abinger, Combermere and Howe with approximate boundaries. These counties are shown on several early maps such as an 1845 map and 1848 map. They were presumably changed in the mid-1860s, as they appear on maps up until 1864, but the new counties appear on an 1865 map. In turn, all parish boundaries were gazetted by 1890. Historical parish plans and maps produced between 1837 and 1986, the majority of which have been digitised, are available online from the

State Library Victoria State Library Victoria (SLV) is the state library of Victoria, Australia. Located in Melbourne, it was established in 1854 as the Melbourne Public Library, making it Australia's oldest public library and one of the first free libraries in th ...

Naming of the counties

The majority of the counties proclaimed prior to 1871 were named after British politicians. The counties formed from the Gipps Land District, Loddon Land District, Murray Land District and Wimmera Land District proclaimed in 1871 were all given aboriginal names.

List of Victorian counties

The 37 Victorian counties and the year they were proclaimed are:

Land administration

Land Use Victoria is the Victorian Government's key agency for land administration, property information and facilitating better use of government-owned land.Victoria State Government
Property and land titles
/ref>

References

{{Counties of Victoria Lists of subdivisions of Australia *

Counties A county () is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposesL. Brookes (ed.) '' Chambers Dictionary''. Edinburgh: Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, 2005. in some nations. The term is derived from the Old French denoti ...

Counties of Victoria