Warrnambool ( ; Maar: Peetoop or Wheringkernitch or Warrnambool) is a city on the south-western coast of Victoria, Australia. At the 2021 census, Warrnambool had a population of 32,894. William Fowler Pickering, the colonial government surveyor who in 1845 was tasked with the initial planning of the township, chose to name the town Warrnambool. The traditional Indigenous owners of the land today are the Dhauwurd Wurrung people, also known as the Gunditjmara.
Aboriginal Australians
Aboriginal Australians have been occupying the site of Warrnambool for at least the last 35,000 years. The vicinity around the Merri River was inhabited by people known as the Merrigundidj, part of the larger Gunditjmara nation. They spoke a language called Bi:gwurrung, which was a dialect of the Dhauwurd Wurrung language. These people constructed large stone and timber weirs called yereroc across various waterways in the region in order to facilitate the trapping of eels. The area at the mouth of the Hopkins River was known as Moyjil. At the beginning of British colonisation of the region in 1841, there were approximately 400 Aboriginal people living around the coastal parts of the Merri River including a number of Koroitgundidj people residing in a village at what is now known as Tower Hill. The ship's provenance has been variously attributed to France, China, Spain and Portugal. There is no physical evidence to suggest that it ever existed.
The first documented European exploration of the area occurred under Lieutenant James Grant, a Scottish explorer who sailed the along the coast in December 1800 and named several features. This was followed by that of the English navigator Matthew Flinders in the , and the French explorer Nicholas Baudin, who recorded coastal landmarks, in 1802. The area was frequented by whalers early in the 19th century.
British settlement
British settlement of the land in the region began in 1838 when Captain Alexander Campbell, a whaler based at nearby Port Fairy, took possession of 4,000 acres around the mouth of the Merri River. He set up a farm there and built his main hut where Warrnambool now stands.
During the Victorian Gold Rush, Warrnambool became an important port and grew quickly in the 1850s, benefiting from the private ownership of nearby Port Fairy. It was gazetted as a municipality in 1855, and became a borough in 1863. Warrnambool was declared a town in 1883, and a city in 1918. Post Offices opened at Warrnambool South in 1937 (closed 1973), Warrnambool East in 1946, and Warrnambool North in 1947 (closed 1975). while the highest minimum temperature remained recorded on 21 January 1900 at the post office. Summers can also get cold on occasion, having dropped to on 4 February 1963 near the beach.