VICTORIA (AUSTRALIA)

Victoria Australia stamps, available online at Io Collezionista. Victoria is a state belonging to the Federation of Australia. The first exploration of the territory dates to 1770, but it was in 1835 that the foreign presence became settled: that year the entrepreneur John Batman bought more than 200,000 hectares of land from the Aboriginal peoples who had occupied the area for more than 40,000 years. The first settlement on the banks of the Yarra river would in time become the present capital of Victoria, Melbourne. The discovery of vast gold deposits in 1851 contributed greatly to the development of the territory and of Melbourne itself, which within a few decades became a rich and prosperous city, earning towards the end of the 19th century the nickname marvellous.