page_title: Albury
section_title: 20th-century city
hierarchical_section_title: Albury / History / 20th-century city
caption_attribution_description: English: Looking down Dean Street Albury (1920s - 1930s) from Monument Hill.
context_page_description: Albury is a major regional city in New South Wales, Australia. It is located on the Hume Highway and the northern side of the Murray River. Albury is the seat of local government for the council area which also bears the city's name – the City of Albury.
  Albury has an urban population of 49,172 and is separated from its twin city in Victoria, Wodonga, by the Murray River. Together, the two cities form an urban area with a population of 93,603 at June 2018. It is 554 kilometres from the state capital Sydney and 326 kilometres from the Victorian capital Melbourne.
  Said to be named after a village in England, Albury developed as a major transport link between New South Wales and Victoria and was proclaimed a city in 1946.
context_section_description: The Royal Commission on Sites for the Seat of Government of the Commonwealth report of 1903 recommended Albury (along with Tumut) as the preferred candidate for the national capital, though the proposal met staunch opposition from residents. At a public meeting, just one member of parliament voted in favour of Albury – Isaac Isaacs, member for Indi. The lack of support for other places ultimately led to the selection of Canberra as the preferred site.
  In 1934, a Douglas DC-2 airliner of KLM (the "Uiver"), a competitor in the MacRobertson Trophy Air Race (also known as the London to Melbourne Air Race), made an emergency night landing at the town's racecourse after becoming lost during severe thunderstorms. After signalling by Morse code A-L-B-U-R-Y to the lost aircrew by using the entire town's public lighting system, the "Uiver" was guided in to land safely. The makeshift runway at the racecourse was illuminated by the headlights of cars belonging to local residents who had responded to a special news bulletin on ABC radio station 2CO. After refuelling the next day, many local volunteers helped pull the stranded aircraft out of the mud and the aircraft was able to take off and continue to Melbourne where it won first prize in the race's handicap category and was second overall.
  Albury and Wodonga played a military role in World War II with the establishment of ordnance bases at Bandiana and Bonegilla. Proclaimed a city in 1946, Albury played a role in the post-war immigration to Australia with the establishment nearby of Australia's first migrant centre, the Bonegilla Migrant Reception and Training Centre in 1947.
  Albury's proximity to Wodonga has spurred several efforts to achieve some kind of municipal governmental union (see Albury-Wodonga). In 1973, Albury-Wodonga was selected as the primary focus of the Whitlam federal government's scheme to redirect the uncontrolled growth of Australia's large coastal cities (Sydney and Melbourne in particular) by encouraging decentralisation. Grand plans were made to turn Albury-Wodonga into a major inland city and large areas of the surrounding farmland was compulsorily purchased by the government. Some industries were enticed to move there, and a certain amount of population movement resulted. However, the current urban population is approximately 92,200.
caption: Overlooking Albury from Monument Hill in the 1920s
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