Mildura Rural City

Mildura Rural City was formed on 20 January 1995, by the union of Mildura city, Mildura shire and Walpeup shire. It is bounded on the west and the north by the South Australian border and the Murray River. Its eastern extremity nearly reaches Robinvale and its southern boundary is in the Wyperfeld and Big Desert National Parks. It contains all of the Murray-Sunset National Park and the Underbool-Murrayville wheat lands between Murray-Sunset and Wyperfeld. The area of the municipality is 22,214 sq km, the largest in Victoria and 9.8% of the state’s area.

All of the municipality is in Victoria’s Mallee region, and the National Parks are Mallee wilderness areas. Farming and agriculture are carried out on 48% of the municipality’s area. There is intensive irrigated agriculture at and adjoining Mildura, of which the main crops are citrus and grapes.

West and south of Mildura there are farm areas supplied by water from pipes and channels. The water piped to the western farm area is pumped from the Murray River. Much further south there is a stretch of farm land between the two wilderness parks, extending from Underbool to Murrayville. It has stock-supply water from the limit of the Wimmera-Mallee channel system and from underground bores.

In 1994 the agricultural statistics for the municipalities which formed the rural city were: sheep and lambs 479,000, barley 134,550 tonnes, wheat 275,052 tonnes and grapes 267,557 tonnes.

Mildura rural city’s census populations have been:

In 1996 the Sunraysia urban centres comprising Irymple, Merbein, Mildura and Red Cliffs were 65.1% of the Mildura Rural City and in 2011 they were 70.3%.