Manningham

Manningham city is a municipality formed on 15 December 1994, by the union of most of Doncaster and Templestowe city (that is, excluding a small part of Ringwood North), and Wonga Park (formerly in Lillydale shire). Manningham’s area is 114 sq km, compared with the former Doncaster and Templestowe city’s area of 89 sq km. The population difference between the two municipalities, based on the 1991 census, was 2571 persons.

Manningham city’s easterly boundary is the junction of the Yarra River and the Koonung Creek at Bulleen, 11 km north-east of Melbourne. The river and the creek are the northern and part of the southern boundaries. The eastern boundary at Wonga Park is 29 km from Melbourne. Most of Manningham city is urban, edged by Yarra Valley and Koonung Creek parklands. The council offices are at Doncaster Hill, near the drive-in Shoppingtown. In the 2010s Doncaster Hill also became a site for high-rise apartments.

In an endeavour to find a name generally applicable to the area of the new municipality, ‘Manningham’ was chosen in preference to the localised ‘Bulleen’, although Bulleen had been the name of the shire predating Doncaster and Templestowe. Manningham is the name of a road, and how it came to be so named was left unanswered in the council-commissioned history (2001).

Manningham city’s census populations have been: