Wagga Wagga Botanic Gardens

Wagga Wagga (; informally called Wagga) is a major regional city in the Riverina region of New South Wales, Australia. Straddling the Murrumbidgee River, with an urban population of more than 56,000 as of June 2018, Wagga Wagga is the state's largest inland city, and is an important agricultural, military, and transport hub of Australia.

The ninth largest inland city in Australia, Wagga Wagga is located midway between the two largest cities in Australia—Sydney and Melbourne—and is the major regional centre for the Riverina and South West Slopes regions. The central business district is focused around the commercial and recreational grid bounded by Best and Tarcutta Streets and the Murrumbidgee River and the Sturt Highway. The main shopping street of Wagga is Baylis Street which becomes Fitzmaurice Street at the northern end. The city is accessible from Sydney via the Sturt and Hume Highways, Adelaide via the Sturt Highway and Albury and Melbourne via the Olympic Highway and Hume Highway. The city is in an alluvial valley and much of the city has a problem with urban salinity. The original inhabitants of the Wagga Wagga region were the Wiradjuri people. In 1829, Charles Sturt became the first European explorer to visit the future site of the city. Squatters arrived soon after. The town, positioned on the site of a ford across the Murrumbidgee, was surveyed and gazetted as a village in 1849 and the town grew quickly after. In 1870, the town was gazetted as a municipality. During the negotiations leading to the federation of the Australian colonies, Wagga Wagga was a contender for the site of the capital for the new nation. During World War I the town was the starting point for the Kangaroo recruitment march. The Great Depression and the resulting hardship saw Wagga Wagga become the centre of a secession movement for the Riverina region. Wagga Wagga became a garrison town during World War II with the establishment of a military base at Kapooka and Royal Australian Air Force bases at Forest Hill and Uranquinty. After the war, Wagga Wagga was proclaimed as a city in 1946 and new suburbs were developed to the south of the city. In 1982 the city was amalgamated with the neighbouring Kyeamba and Mitchell Shires to form the City of Wagga Wagga local government area.

Wagga Wagga is at the eastern end of the Riverina region where the slopes of the Great Dividing Range flatten and form the Riverina plain. The city straddles the Murrumbidgee River, one of the great rivers of the Murray-Darling Basin, and the city centre is on the southern bank, protected by a levee from potential flooding. The city sits halfway between the largest cities in Australia, being 452 kilometres southwest of Sydney and 456 kilometres northeast of Melbourne with the Sydney–Melbourne railway line passing through. The Sturt Highway, part of Australia's National Highway network, passes through the city on its way from Adelaide to its junction with the main Sydney–Melbourne route, the Hume Highway, a further 45 kilometres east. This location astride some of the major transport routes in the nation has made Wagga Wagga an important heavy truck depot for a number of companies including Toll Holdings. Wagga Wagga itself is the major regional centre for the Riverina and for much of the South West Slopes regions, providing education, health and other services to a region extending as far as Griffith to the west, Cootamundra to the north and Tumut to the east.

Wagga Wagga has a number of heritage-listed sites, including:

Botanic Gardens Site (BGS), Baden Powell Drive: Mobile Cook's Galley, Museum of the Riverina Main Southern railway: Wagga Wagga railway station

The Wagga Wagga City Flag was designed by Mr H Ellis Tomlinson, MA, FHS and adopted in 1965. Currently, Wagga Wagga City Council holds the copyright to Tomlinson's design. The flag is officially square. The upper quarter of it contains eight stalks of wheat positioned so as to form two capital letters W on a vert (green) field. The lower quarter of the upper half of the flag contains a wavy blue line on gold (yellow) representing the river winding through the wheat fields. The lower half of the flag contains the head of a ram positioned centrally on a vert (green) field.

Wagga Wagga is the major city of the Riverina and the largest inland city in New South Wales. As at June 2018 the urban area of Wagga Wagga was home to an estimated population of 56,442 having grown, on average, 0.65 percent year-on-year during the previous five years. Much of this growth is attributable to the "sponge city" phenomenon as Wagga Wagga attracts residents from smaller towns in the region such as Urana. Other factors include Wagga's role as a regional centre and its hosting of major defence establishments and a Charles Sturt University campus.

According to the 2016 census of Population, there were 54,411 people in the Wagga Wagga Urban Area.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people made up 5.9% of the population. 84.1% of people were born in Australia. The next most common countries of birth were England 1.3%, India 1.2%, Philippines 0.7%, New Zealand 0.7% and China 0.5%. 87.5% of people spoke only English at home. Other languages spoken at home included Malayalam 0.7%, Arabic 0.5%, Mandarin 0.5%, Tagalog 0.3% and Filipino 0.3%. The most common responses for religion were Catholic 31.2%, No Religion 22.1% and Anglican 19.3%.Wagga Wagga falls within the boundary of the Anglican Diocese of Canberra and Goulburn. Anglican parishes include St John's, Wagga Wagga (Church St); St Paul's, Turvey Park (Fernleigh Rd); St Alban's, Kooringal (Lake Albert Rd); Community of the Redeemer, Ashmont (Blakemore Ave). Wagga Wagga is the seat of a Roman Catholic diocese, with its principal church being St Michael's Cathedral.

Busabout Wagga Wagga provides bus services from most Wagga Wagga suburbs to the CBD 365 days a year, including public holidays. Allen's Coaches of Coolamon and Junee Buses provide weekday connections to Coolamon (routes 1W, 2W and 3W) and Junee (routes 21-25) respectively. Wagga Radio Cabs run taxis 24/7 in the city with taxi ranks at Station Place, Forsyth Street, Gurwood Street, Wagga Wagga Base Hospital and Kooringal Mall. Baylis Street in the CBD was a thoroughfare for the Olympic Highway until the Gobbagombalin Bridge (referred to locally as the Gobba Bridge and is believed to be the longest continuous-span viaduct in New South Wales) about 6 km northwest of the CBD was opened on 26 July 1997. The Sturt Highway passes through the centre of Wagga Wagga.

Wagga's location approximately midway between Melbourne and Sydney on the "Barassi Line" contributes to high levels of participation in Rugby league, Rugby union and Australian rules football in the town. Other popular sports in Wagga include soccer, cricket, tennis, and lawn bowls. The local rugby league teams play in the Group 9 Rugby League competition and include Wagga Brothers, South City and Wagga Kangaroos. The Group 9 grand final is a major sport event in Wagga Wagga. Rugby union teams include CSU Reddies, Wagga Agricultural College, Wagga City and Wagga Waratahs in the Southern Inland Rugby Union. Australian rules football clubs in Wagga include Collingullie-Glenfield Park, Mangoplah-Cookardinia United-Eastlakes, Turvey Park and Wagga Tigers in the Riverina Football League and East Wagga-Kooringal, North Wagga and Rivcoll(CSU) in the Farrer Football League. Wagga soccer teams include Henwood Park, Wagga United, Tolland and Lake Albert, with the first grade competition for men being the Pascoe Cup and for women the Leonard Cup. The Wagga Wagga Gold Cup, said to be Australia's second oldest thoroughbred horse race, is held in the first week of May.

As a regional centre for the Riverina and South West Slopes, Wagga Wagga is home to a number of regional media outlets.

The city receives the ABC's four free-to-air national television channels (ABC TV (formerly ABC1), ABC TV Plus (formerly ABC Comedy and ABC2), ABC Kids, ABC Me (formerly ABC3) and ABC News) (formerly ABC News 24), SBS's six television channels (SBS TV, SBS Viceland (formerly SBS Two, and SBS 2, SBS Food (formerly Food Network), SBS World Movies, SBS WorldWatch and NITV), the commercial networks' main channels (Seven Network from Seven Regional (formerly Prime7), Nine Network from WIN Television and Network Ten from Southern Cross 10 and the commercial networks' multi channels (7two, 7mate and 7flix from Seven Regional (formerly Prime7), 9Go!, 9Gem and 9Life from WIN Television and Sky News Regional, 10 Bold (formerly One, One HD and 10 Boss), 10 Peach (formerly Eleven) and 10 Shake from Southern Cross 10). Of the three main commercial networks:

Seven News formerly (Prime7 News) produces a half-hour local news bulletin for the Riverina, airing each weeknight at 6pm. It is produced from a local newsroom in Wagga Wagga and broadcast from studios in Canberra. Southern Cross 10 airs short local news updates throughout the day, broadcast from studios in Hobart. Previously, a regional New South Wales edition of Nine News from Sydney each weeknight at 6pm, featuring opt-outs for Wagga Wagga and the Riverina when the station was affiliated with the Nine Network. WIN Television aired a half-hour local bulletin until the closure of its Wagga Wagga newsroom in June 2019. Between June 2019 and June 2021 the station produced short news updates throughout the day from its Wollongong studios. From 1 July 2021, the Wagga Wagga newsroom was reopened, however the stories are now inserted into a statewide bulletin which now airs across the broadcast area on the network.Local radio stations broadcasting from Wagga Wagga include ABC Riverina, AM radio commercial station Triple M Riverina (callsign 2WG, 1152 kHz), FM radio commercial station Hit93.1 Riverina, and a rebroadcast from radio reading service Radio 1RPH. Other local stations include Christian radio station Life FM and the community station 2AAA FM. The ABC's national stations ABC Radio National, ABC Classic FM, ABC NewsRadio and Triple J and the multicultural network SBS Radio are broadcast into Wagga Wagga. The Daily Advertiser, published Monday to Friday and its sister publication, the Weekend Advertiser, service Wagga and much of the surrounding region. The newspaper was established by two wealthy local pastoralists, Auber George Jones and Thomas Darlow and first printed on 10 December 1868 by editor Frank Hutchison, an Oxford graduate. Originally printed bi-weekly, by 1880 it was tri-weekly and finally became 'daily' on 31 December 1910. In 1962 the newspaper reduced in size from a broadsheet to a tabloid format. The Riverina Leader, the local free community newspaper was launched in May 1979.

Sharna Burgess (Dancing with the Stars professional dancer) Wayne Carey AFL (North Melbourne FC and 2x Premiership player) Dame Edna Everage (Satirical figure) Paul Kelly (Former Australian rules footballer, Brownlow Medal winner and captain of the Sydney Swans for ten seasons) Bill Kerr (Australian actor and co-star of the BBC radio comedy Hancock's Half Hour) Nina Las Vegas (DJ) Geoff Lawson (Cricketer) Lex Marinos (Actor) Steve Martin (Rugby league player) Michael McCormack (18th Deputy Prime Minister of Australia) Sam Moran (former member of the children's musical group The Wiggles) William Monks (Architect) Chris Mortimer (Rugby league player) Peter Mortimer (Rugby league player) Arthur Orton (Imposter of the late 19th century) Alicia Quirk (Australian Women's Rugby sevens player and 2016 Summer Olympics gold medal winner) Tony Roche (1966 French Open tennis champion) Nathan Sharpe (Rugby union player) Michael Slater (Cricketer) Peter Sterling (Rugby League player and TV commentator) Mark Taylor (Australian cricket captain)

Swan, Keith (1970). A history of Wagga Wagga. City of Wagga Wagga.