Launceston
Tourism

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harbor in the estuary of the Tamar was surveyed by Bass and Flinders during their circumnavigation of Tasmania in 1798 and was named Port Dalrymple after the Admiralty hydrographer. In 1804 William Paterson founded the present settlement of George Town on Port Dalrymple. A year later Paterson founded another settlement further upstream which he called Patersonia. It was renamed Launceston in 1907 in honor of Governor Philip King, who came from Launceston in Cornwall. In 1835 a party of settlers led by John Batman sailed from here to Port Phillip in Victoria and founded Melbourne.

The town prospered thanks to the productive agriculture of the surrounding area and to its mills. By the 1820s it was already the most important town in northern Tasmania, with extensive port installations and warehouses along the waterfront.

Transport

From the airport 16km south of the town center there are connections with Hobart and Melbourne. Launceston lies at the junction of five important highways - the Midlands Highway from the south, the Tasman Highway from the east, the West and East Tamar Highways from the north and the Bass Highway from the west.