Towns in Australia

Exploring Australia, town by town

Mitta Mitta VIC

Mitta Mitta

Postcode: 3701

Mitta Mitta is a small town in Victoria, Australia on the Omeo Highway and is 380km from Melbourne, and is located on the Mitta Mitta River not far from Dartmouth Dam. Mitta Mitta, from Mutta Mutta, means “thunder” in the local Aboriginal language. The river was discovered by early pastoralists from the Monaro district in New South Wales seeking respite from increasingly dry conditions.

A squatting run was taken up in 1840. Gold was discovered in 1864 and a town developed. The Pioneer Mine, to the west of the town, became one of the state’s largest open-cut mines and with 425 kg of gold produced over 16 years. In the early twentieth century gold dredges mined for gold. Tin was also mined in the district.

The area surrounding Mitta Mitta was ravaged by bushfires in 2003.