As they say, when the Commonwealth of Australia was established in 1901, two Australian cities started debating as to which of them would be the capital. However, neither Sydney, the first European settlement in Australia founded in 1788, nor Melbourne built in 1830 turned out to be the winner. Melbourne gained the status of temporary capital. As for the real capital, it was decided to build it in a valley located halfway from Melbourne to Sydney. The name of this valley sounded remarkably appropriate – Canberra, which can be translated from the language of aboriginals as meeting place. Thus, the city, not yet build, was declared the capital of Australia on March 12, 1913 and started being constructed at once under the project developed by American architect Walter Burley Griffin who won the respective tender. In 1927, the authorities decided that the capital had been built and transferred the parliament and government to Canberra. As for Griffin, he did not fall into oblivion – a gigantic artificial lake located in the city center was named after him.