This is a list of Municipalities and their suburbs (neighbourhoods), townships, and rural localities in the greater metropolitan area of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Suburbs are defined here as localities within the legislated Urban Growth Boundary,[1] all of which have some urban development. This line is the effective boundary of suburban Melbourne; outside it lie rural areas, and some townships of varying size.
Each suburb is followed by its postcode. Some suburbs share the same postcode.
Indented entries are recognised by the Geographic Names Board as unbounded neighbourhoods except when italicised. Those italicised usually have, or have had, Post Offices open under that name.
Information about exact suburb boundaries can be obtained from the Department of Environment Land Water and Planning.
In Australia, a suburb is a named and bounded locality of a city, with an urban nature, regardless of its location within that city. The term "inner suburbs" refers to the older, denser, urban areas closer to the original colonial centre of the cities and "outer suburbs" refers to the urban areas more remote from the centre of the metropolitan area. Sometimes the term "middle ring suburb" is used to refer to areas that were urbanised early in a city's expansion after the inner suburbs had become established. This differs from British and North American usage, in which the term "suburb" is usually not applied to urban areas (neighbourhoods) that are close to a major city centre or inside the central city's local government boundary.