page_title: Riverina
section_title: Cities, towns and settlements
hierarchical_section_title: Riverina / Cities, towns and settlements
caption_attribution_description: Station Master's Residence at Culcairn, New South Wales
context_page_description: The Riverina
  is an agricultural region of South-Western New South Wales, Australia. The Riverina is distinguished from other Australian regions by the combination of flat plains, warm to hot climate and an ample supply of water for irrigation. This combination has allowed the Riverina to develop into one of the most productive and agriculturally diverse areas of Australia. Bordered on the south by the state of Victoria and on the east by the Great Dividing Range, the Riverina covers those areas of New South Wales in the Murray and Murrumbidgee drainage zones to their confluence in the west.
  Home to Aboriginal groups for over 40,000 years, the Riverina was originally colonised by Europeans in the mid-19th century as a pastoral region providing beef and wool to markets in Australia and beyond. In the 20th century, the development of major irrigation areas in the Murray and Murrumbidgee valleys has led to the introduction of crops such as rice and wine grapes. The Riverina has strong cultural ties to Victoria, and the region was the source of much of the impetus behind the federation of Australian colonies.
context_section_description: At the 2001 census, the population of the Murray-Murrumbidgee (Statistical Region Sector), consisting almost entirely of the Riverina, was 255,881, 2.9% of whom were indigenous and 7.4% born outside Australia. Other than the United Kingdom and Ireland, the largest ethnic groups in the Riverina were Italians and Germans.
  The Riverina includes two cities; Wagga Wagga and Griffith. Other large towns include Leeton, Finley, Deniliquin, Cootamundra, West Wyalong, Narrandera, Junee and Temora.
  Wagga Wagga is the largest inland city in New South Wales and serves as an important employment, educational, cultural, social and entertainment centre for surrounding towns throughout the Riverina. Wagga Wagga's facilities are of metropolitan standards with shopping, cafes, recreational facilities and nightlife present within the city.
  The two largest centres in population in the region after Wagga Wagga are Griffith and Leeton and they provide advanced services to the outlying farming regions.
  Parts of the Riverina experienced substantial population growth in the late 1990s and early 2000s; in the five-year period between 1996 and 2001, Griffith's population increased by 10.8%. Until recently Wagga Wagga's population was declining slowly and ageing with strong growth in age groups 40 and over. This has now changed and Wagga Wagga has become one of Australia's leading examples of the "sponge" city phenomenon, attracting residents from smaller towns in the Riverina such as Urana. In the year ended 30 June 2006, the population of Wagga Wagga grew by 1.3%, driven by its role as the regional centre for the Riverina and its hosting of a campus of Charles Sturt University and Australian Defence Force bases.
caption: The Station Master's Residence in the town of Culcairn in the eastern Riverina. Many of the buildings in Culcairn, including this one, are heritage listed.[69]
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