Hume Highway

The Hume Highway is one of the most important roads in Australia, linking that country's two largest major cities - Sydney and Melbourne. There are other roads that can be used to travel between these two cities, but the Hume Highway is by far the shortest, quickest and safest.

The Hume Highway travels through the states of New South Wales and Victoria and got its name in the 1920s during a nationwide highway naming scheme. Before this, the road was known as the "Great Southern Road" in NSW and "Sydney Road" in Victoria. The road is named after Hamilton Hume, a famous explorer in the early 19th century who in conjunction with William Hovell first found an overland route between Sydney and the infant colonial outpost of Port Phillip[?], the original name of Melbourne.

The Hume Highway is approximately 900km (550 miles) long, of which over 80 per cent is now dual carriageway or motorway standard. The principal towns through which it passes are Liverpool, Camden, Picton, Mittagong, Goulburn, Yass, Gundagai, Holbrook and Albury in New South Wales; and Wodonga, Wangaratta, Benalla, Euroa and Seymour in Victoria.

The Hume Highway is part of the National Highway system spanning Australia, and is signed as National Highway 31 in NSW and National Highway M31 in Victoria.