Greater Shepparton

Greater Shepparton city is a municipality formed on 18 November 1994, by the union of Shepparton city, Shepparton shire, most of Rodney shire and parts of Euroa, Goulburn, Tungamah, Violet Town and Waranga shires. Shepparton is in the centre of the shire, which has an area of 2427 sq km.

Shepparton is reached from Melbourne by the Goulburn Valley Highway, which is intersected by the east-west Midland Highway. Railways more or less parallel the highways: a line from Seymour runs north through Shepparton to Numurkah and Tocumwal (New South Wales); and an east-west line connects Shepparton to Echuca (westwards) and Dookie (eastwards). The municipality’s other larger towns include Katandra West, Mooroopna and Tatura (farm irrigation areas) and Murchison. There are several densely settled farm localities around Shepparton, and Kialla has become a southern suburb of Shepparton.

The notion of Greater Shepparton was promoted by the former Shepparton and Rodney Councils at least as early as the mid-1960s in an endeavour to attract commercial investment to the region.

The Goulburn Valley is promoted as ‘the salad bowl of Australia’. There are fruit and dairy food processing factories in and around Shepparton and in Tatura. In the primary stage of production, however, there are declining proportions of employment, and in 2011 education and hospitals outranked dairy farming, orcharding and food processing in that regard. Overall, population has increased, mostly in Shepparton/Mooroopna/Kialla: