Shepparton

Shepparton is a city located on the floodplain of the Goulburn River in northern Victoria, Australia, approximately 181 kilometres (112 mi) north-northeast of Melbourne. As of the 2021 census, the estimated population of Shepparton, including the adjacent town of Mooroopna, was 53841.

It began as a sheep station and river crossing in the mid-19th century, before undergoing a major transformation as a railway town. Today it is an agricultural and manufacturing centre, and the centre of the Goulburn Valley irrigation system, one of the largest centres of irrigation in Australia. It is also a major regional service city and the seat of local government and civic administration for the City of Greater Shepparton, which includes the surrounding towns of Tatura, Merrigum, Mooroopna, Murchison, Dookie, Toolamba and Grahamvale.

The name of Shepparton is derived from the surname of one of the area’s first European settlers, Sherbourne Sheppard, and not, as is sometimes imagined, from Shepperton, England.

The Yorta Yorta name for the area is ‘Kanny-goopna’ with ‘goopna’ meaning ‘deep waterholes by which people camped’. The name for the junction of the Broken and Goulburn rivers is ‘Marangan’, meaning deep pond or lagoon in an unknown Eastern Kulin language.