Burwood Premium Taxi Service

The suburb takes its name, indirectly, from a house called Burwood — later known as Invergowrie — built by Sir James Palmer in Hawthorn West in 1852. The name was applied to the district in 1879 when the local post office was renamed from its original designation of Ballyshanassy, which recalled an Irish settlement surveyed in 1858 as the area’s first European village.

That original settlement of Ballyshanassy was centred around what is now Burwood Cemetery and a police station, approximately 1 km east of Warrigal Road, in a location still identifiable by the unusual road layout off the south side of Burwood Highway. The commercial heart of the suburb gradually migrated west to the triangle formed by Warrigal Road, Toorak Road and Burwood Highway, which remains the main village centre today. The extension of the Toorak Road tramline to Warrigal Road in 1912 was the key catalyst for residential subdivision, drawing the middle class outward along the tram corridor in the characteristic pattern of Melbourne’s interwar suburban expansion. By the postwar decades, development pushed steadily east along Burwood Highway through Bennettswood toward Burwood East, transforming former orchards and flower farms into brick-veneer housing estates. The suburb’s orcharding heritage — the area was once productive with apple, cherry and pear groves — is still acknowledged along the Gardiners Creek Trail, where carved tree stumps and interpretive signage trace the local agricultural past.

Burwood has two claims to firsts in Australian suburban history. In February 1954, the Burwood Skyline Drive-In Theatre opened on Burwood Highway — the first drive-in theatre in Australia — drawing novelty-hungry Melburnians from across the city. Fifteen years later in 1969, the first Kmart department store in Australia opened on the corner of Burwood Highway and Blackburn Road in Burwood East, establishing the discount retail format that would reshape Australian shopping. In 1972, Burwood’s educational character was transformed when the State College of Victoria established its main campus on Burwood Highway on the site of a former estate, an institution that evolved through Victoria College into Deakin University — today one of the suburb’s dominant presences.

At the 2021 census, Burwood recorded a population of 15,147, with a median age of 34 — notably younger than most inner-eastern suburbs — reflecting the influence of Deakin University and significant student accommodation. The suburb is distinctly multicultural: around half the population was born overseas, with Chinese-born residents forming the largest group, followed by Indian, Malaysian, Sri Lankan and other communities. Mandarin is the most widely spoken language other than English.