Bourke Victoria |
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Location in Victoria
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The County of Bourke is one of the 37 counties of Victoria which are part of the Lands administrative divisions of Australia, used for land titles. It is the oldest and most populous county in Victoria and contains the city of Melbourne. Like other counties in Victoria, it is subdivided into parishes. The county was named after Richard Bourke, the governor of New South Wales between 1831 and 1837. It is bordered by the Werribee River in the west, the Great Dividing Range in the north, Port Phillip in the south, and by Dandenong Creek, a small part of the Yarra River, and the Plenty River in the east.
Unlike counties in England and in the United States, Australian counties serve no administrative or political function. Rather, counties exist for purposes of land ownership. For example, property titles in Lands administrative divisions of Australia are often listed as being situated within a parish and county. For political subdivisions, Australia employs the Local Government Area (LGA) system — which includes shires, districts, and city councils — as the third and lowest tier of government (the States and territories of Australia being the second tier and the Federal Government being the highest tier).