Griffith


Griffith is the regional service centre for the vast Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area - one of the most productive agricultural regions in Australia.

Where Is It?: Griffith is 803 km from Adelaide; 568 km from Sydney; 512 km from Melbourne; 358 km from Canberra.

Thanks to irrigation Griffith is rich in agriculture and it is only appropriate that the city is known as Australia's "Wine and Food Country". Fine wines, international standard restaurants, an incredible range of fresh produce and opportunities to visit farms are only a small part of the varied experiences available.


The local produce is celebrated every October with the Festival of Gardens and Giant Citrus Sculpture Display.

Like the Australian capital, Canberra and the nearby town of Leeton, Griffith was designed by Walter Burley Griffin. All three have their roads and streets laid out in a circular pattern. Griffith was named after Sir Arthur Griffith the first New South Wales minister of Public Works. The city of Griffith is believed to be the only city in Australia that has no traffic lights.

It can be accessed by road from Sydney and Canberra via the Hume Highway and the Burley Griffin Way and from Melbourne via the Newell Highway and either by using the Kidman Way or the Irrigation Way.




Brief history: Griffith was established in 1916 as part of the New South Wales State Government's Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area project to supply irrigation from the Murrumbidgee river in western New South Wales to be used for farming. The main dam was the large Burrinjuck Dam between Gundagai and Canberra, which stored water to be released down the river for irrigation. Berembed Weir, near Narrandera, was built across the Murrumbidgee River, from which flows the Main Canal. The Canal, almost a river in its own right, flows through the MIA to Griffith, supplying water to the entire area, and petering out to the northwest of the city in rice farms.

From its earliest days, the MIA was populated by Italian workers, some of whom were initially employed by Australian farmers to run steamboats on the Murrumbidgee and Murray Rivers. Approximately 60% of today's Griffith population claim Italian background. These include the initial settlement of Italians from the boat crews and other Italians who came out to Australia in the Depression, or from a second wave of immigrant Italians who came to Griffith in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

In the 1970s, Griffith was often associated with drug distribution (particularly marijuana) and organised crime, no doubt because of it central location between the eastern state's capitals, and its ability for plants to be cultivated in relative seclusion.

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