Launceston

Launceston is a city in northern Tasmania, Australia, where the North Esk and South Esk rivers join to form the Tamar estuary. It was named a UNESCO City of Gastronomy in 2021 for the food and wine of its region.

William Paterson founded the settlement in 1806 and named it after Launceston in Cornwall, the home town of Governor Philip Gidley King. It is the third-oldest city in Australia, after Sydney and Hobart. In the 19th century the port shipped wool and tin from northern Tasmania, and the city grew rich with banks, warehouses and Victorian houses. Launceston was among the first towns in the Southern Hemisphere to have streets lit by hydroelectric power, from the Duck Reach power station opened in the 1890s.

James Boag and Son brews Boag's beer at its brick brewery on the bank of the North Esk. Wine from the vineyards of the Tamar Valley, known for its sparkling wines and pinot noir, is sold in the cellars along the river north of the city.

Cataract Gorge, a few minutes' walk from the center, has cliff paths, a chairlift and a swimming pool beside the South Esk, with peacocks in the gardens of its basin. City Park, a Victorian park in the center, keeps a group of Japanese macaques given by the sister city of Ikeda. The Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery shows colonial art and the natural history of Tasmania in a former railway workshop. Princes Square, laid out in the 1850s, has a bronze fountain from France and is lined with churches.