The District of Woden Valley is one of the original eighteen districts of the Australian Capital Territory used in land administration. The district is subdivided into divisions, sections and blocks. The district of Woden Valley lies entirely within the bounds of the city of Canberra, the capital city of Australia. The name of Woden Valley is taken from the name of a nearby homestead owned by Dr James Murray who named the homestead in October 1837 after the Old Englishgod of wisdom, Woden. He named it this as he was to spend his life in the pursuit of wisdom. However, historian Dr Harold Koch considers that the name may have its origins in the Aboriginal word for possum, either wadyan or wadhan, influenced in interpretation by the term known to English speakers of 'Woden'. In 1964 it was the first satellite city to be built, separate from the Canberra Central district. It has its own shopping centre, employment opportunities and accommodation with twelve suburbs arranged around the Woden Town Centre. At the, the population of the district was.
Establishment and governance
The traditional custodians of the district are the indigenous people of the Ngunnawal tribe. Following the transfer of land from the Government of New South Wales to the Commonwealth Government in 1911, the district was established in 1966 by the Commonwealth via the gazettal of the Districts Ordinance 1966 which, after the enactment of the Australian Capital Territory Act 1988, became the Districts Act 1966. This Act was subsequently repealed by the ACT Government and the district is now administered subject to the Districts Act 2002.
Location and urban structure
The district is a set of contiguous residential suburbs that surround the Woden Town Centre, which includes a major shopping centre, called Westfield Woden, or more commonly known as Woden Plaza. Woden is also home to the tallest building in Canberra, Lovett Tower, which stands at 22 stories. Lovett Tower and a number of other buildings host staff from Australian Government agencies; there is also some light industrial development in the town centre. Within the district are a number of community facilities including the campus of the Canberra College, a secondary school catering to years 11 and 12 ; a library, the Woden Youth Centre, and the Canberra Hospital, which is located in the north of the district.
Demographics
At the, there were people in the Woden Valley district, of these 48.7 per cent were male and 51.3 per cent were female. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people made up 1.2 per cent of the population, which was lower than the national and territory averages. The median age of people in the Woden Valley district was 40 years, which was slightly higher than the national median of 38 years. Children aged 0 – 14 years made up 17.7 per cent of the population and people aged 65 years and over made up 19.1 per cent of the population. Of people in the area aged 15 years and over, 51.6 per cent were married and 10.3 per cent were either divorced or separated. The median weekly income for residents within the Woden Valley district was significantly higher than the national average, and slightly lower than the territory average. At the 2016 census, the most common ancestries reported in the Woden Valley area were English, Australian, Irish, Scottish and Indian. 32.3 per cent of residents described themselves as having "No Religion", higher than the national average at 29.6 per cent. Households in the Woden Valley district had a slightly higher than average proportion where a language other than English was spoken at home ; and a slightly lower proportion where only English was spoken at home.
Woden Storm Water Drain - one of twenty-six legal graffiti sites within the Australian Capital Territory. The walls of the drain display colourful murals for many hundreds of metres from local, interstate and overseas graffiti artists.
Woden Valley is a vital area when it comes to sport in the Territory. Its football club, Woden Valley FC, is very popular amongst juniors. Woden Valley also has a rugby league team Woden Rams and an Australian rules football team. It also has a tenpin bowling centre and produced NSW champion and award-winning sports journalist Reagan Murphy, who lived in Garran and attended Woden Valley High School in the 1970s.
Natural disasters
Bushfires
While the majority of the destruction caused by the 2003 Canberra bushfires occurred in the Weston Creek district, in the Woden Valley suburbs of Curtin, three houses were destroyed; in Lyons, four houses; and in Torrens, two houses. Curtin, in particular, has been threatened by bushfires several times since its construction.
Floods
On Australia Day in 1971 a flash flood at Yarra Glen killed seven people. The drains and roads in the area have since been redesigned to avoid future flood casualties.
