Harrietville, VIC
By Lauren McCaleb · Reviewed by Dylan Duncan ·
Harrietville is a small alpine town in Victoria's Alpine Shire, about 351 kilometres north-east of Melbourne and 27 kilometres south of Bright on the Great Alpine Road. It is said to be named after one of the area's first women settlers. The town began as a goldfield, its post office opening in 1865, and worked first as shallow alluvial diggings, where many Chinese miners laboured, then as deep reef mines. A large gold dredge known as the 'Tronoh Monster' reshaped the river flats, leaving the ponds now used for swimming and fishing at the Tronoh Dredge Hole. The 1880 Athenaeum still stands. Today Harrietville is best known as a gateway to the snowfields of Mount Hotham, with a calendar of bush markets and bluegrass music.
More advantaged than the national average
Harrietville is more socio-economically advantaged than about 68% of the 14,462 Australian suburbs we score, based on the ABS SEIFA index (raw score 1018, where about 1000 is the national average).
A socio-economic measure from ABS Census data — not a measure of how good a suburb is to live in or visit. How we calculate this.
Is Harrietville a good place to live?
There’s no single answer — it depends on what matters to you. So instead of one mystery number, we break it down: a transparent score on each part of life we can back with public data, and an honest “not yet” on the parts we can’t.
Around the national middle
A weighted blend of the 2 components we can score for Harrietville from public data. It sits alongside — and reconciles with — the socio-economic Suburb Score above; it is a transparent read, not a complete verdict.
Socio-economic advantage
68/100More advantaged than the national average
More advantaged than the national average — the same ABS SEIFA-based Suburb Score (68/100) shown above. Income, education and occupation, as published by the ABS. · ABS SEIFA 2021
Housing affordability
49/100Around the national median for cost
Median weekly rent was $290 at the 2021 Census — more affordable than about 49% of suburbs we can compare. Housing data only, no valuations. · ABS Census 2021
Not yet scored
We’d rather leave these open than publish a number we can’t stand behind. Here’s where each one stands.
- Amenities & accessNot scored yet — our OpenStreetMap amenity mapping is still rolling out across suburbs.
- Green spaceNot scored yet — our OpenStreetMap green-space mapping is still rolling out across suburbs.
- TransportNot scored yet — our OpenStreetMap public-transport mapping is still rolling out across suburbs.
- SchoolsNot scored yet — school performance (ACARA / ICSEA) needs a data-reuse licence cleared before we can publish it.
- SafetyNot scored yet — Australia has no single open crime dataset and safety data carries defamation and legal care, so it is gated pending a go/no-go and will be data-only when added.
- CommunityNot scored yet — we won't reduce community to a number from a proxy. We'd rather leave it open than publish an invented value judgement.
A transparent read on public data, not a verdict — and not a measure of any person or community. See our methodology for how each component is worked out and why some aren’t scored yet.
Harrietville at a glance
- Population (2021)
- 488
- Median age
- 45
- Median weekly household income
- $1,625
- SEIFA score
- 1018
- Local government area
- Alpine
- Coordinates
- -36.9165, 147.0558
Map of Harrietville
© OpenStreetMap contributors · View larger map
Housing & property in Harrietville
What it costs to live in Harrietville and how residents hold their homes, from the Australian Bureau of Statistics 2021 Census.
- Median rent
- $290
- per week
- Median mortgage
- $1,517
- per month
- Owner-occupied
- 73%
- of dwellings
- Rented
- 23%
- of dwellings
The full tenure and dwelling-type breakdown is in the Harrietville demographics section below.
Source: ABS Census of Population and Housing, 2021. © Australian Bureau of Statistics, released under CC BY 4.0. See our methodology.
Harrietville demographics (2021 Census)
The figures below profile Harrietville using the Australian Bureau of Statistics 2021 Census; every percentage is a share of a clearly stated Census count, so each one traces back to the source. At a glance, the largest age group is mid-life (45–64) at 37% and 16% of residents were born overseas.
Age profile
| Age group | People | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Children (0–14) | 83 | 17% |
| Youth (15–24) | 27 | 6% |
| Young adults (25–44) | 117 | 24% |
| Mid-life (45–64) | 177 | 37% |
| Seniors (65+) | 74 | 15% |
Share of the 478 people counted by age.
Housing and households
| Tenure | Dwellings | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Owned outright | 63 | 39% |
| Owned with a mortgage | 54 | 34% |
| Rented | 37 | 23% |
| Dwelling type | Dwellings | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Houses | 144 | 90% |
| Townhouses & semis | 5 | 3% |
| Flats & apartments | 8 | 5% |
Tenure and dwelling shares are of the roughly 160 occupied private dwellings in Harrietville.
- Average household size
- 2.3 people
- Median weekly family income
- $1,897
- Median weekly personal income
- $902
Community and culture
- Born overseas
- 63 (16%)
- Speaks a language other than English at home
- 20 (5%)
- Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander
- 4 (1%)
Work and education
- Completed Year 12
- 208 (53%)
- Labour-force participation
- 59.8%
- Unemployment rate
- 1.7%
- Employed full-time
- 125
- Employed part-time
- 95
Source: ABS Census of Population and Housing, 2021 (General Community Profile, by Suburb and Locality). © Australian Bureau of Statistics, released under CC BY 4.0. How we group bands and derive each share is set out on our methodology page.
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Common questions about Harrietville
Is Harrietville a good place to live?
There's no single answer, so we score what the public data can back. On socio-economic advantage and housing affordability, Harrietville rates 62/100 overall (Around the national middle). Public transport, schools and safety aren't scored yet — see our methodology for why.
What is the median rent in Harrietville?
At the 2021 Census, the median weekly rent in Harrietville was $290, and the median monthly mortgage repayment was $1,517. These are official ABS Census figures — StreetScout publishes housing data only, with no property valuations or agent referrals.
Where is Harrietville?
Harrietville is a suburb of Victoria, Australia, in the Alpine local government area.
What is the population of Harrietville?
At the 2021 Census, Harrietville had a population of about 488.
Is Harrietville an advantaged area?
Harrietville has an ABS SEIFA score of 1018, where about 1000 is the national average — higher scores indicate greater relative socio-economic advantage. That gives it a Suburb Score of 68 out of 100 — more socio-economically advantaged than about 68% of Australian suburbs.
Nearby suburbs in Victoria
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