The history of Victoria refers to the history of the Australian state of Victoria and the area's preceding Indigenous and British colonial societies.
Before British colonisation of Australia, many Aboriginal peoples lived in the area now known as Victoria. After the first Europeans settled there in October 1803, in September 1836 the area became part of the colony of New South Wales, known as the District of Port Phillip. In July 1851, the District of Port Phillip was established as its own colony, becoming the Colony of Victoria, with its own government within the British Empire. During the 1850s, gold was discovered in Clunes and Buninyong in Ballarat in 1851, which was the start of the Victorian Gold Rush. In 1901 it became a state of the Commonwealth of Australia.
