It is linked by national highways north to Brisbane and Charleville, south towards Melbourne and Canberra, east to Sydney, Newcastle and Gosford and west to Broken Hill and Adelaide.

[citation needed] Explorer and surveyor John Oxley was the first European to report on the area, now known as Dubbo, in 1818.

[12] Dulhunty occupied a property, known as Dubbo Station (established in 1828),[11] from the early 1830s on a squatting basis.

Some references indicate that Dubbo was the name of an old Wiradjuri man who resided at the site when Dulhunty took the land.

[14] Dubbo's name apparently meant "red soil", consistent with the local landscape.

[16] Dundullimal Homestead is a farmhouse from that period, built around 1840 by John Maugham on his 26,000-acre (11,000 ha) sheep station.

[21][22][23] By 1897, Dubbo had a general store, Carrier Arms, a slab courthouse, a gaol, and a police hut.

[2][26] On 10 June 1989, during the Queen's Birthday Long Weekend, Dubbo became the final stop of the Through West Mail, a train hauled by double-headed locomotives the Flying Scotsman and 3801, ending a journey of 289 miles.

[38][39] Summers are warm to hot, and winters cool to cold, bringing some occurrences of early morning frost but generally no snowfall – unlike the nearby city of Orange.

The top religious groups in Dubbo are Catholic (26.4%), Anglican (17.7%), and Uniting Church (3.7%); 27.2% reported no religion (lower than the 38.4% nationally) and 9.2% did not answer the question.

[47] Dubbo is also considered a major shopping centre for the surrounding regional areas in the Central and Far Western districts of New South Wales.

Dubbo features the open-range Taronga Western Plains Zoo, which is home to various species of endangered animals, including the white, black, and Indian rhinoceroses, and runs a successful breeding program for a number of endangered species.

The zoo is home to numerous specimens from around the world in spacious open-range moat enclosures, grouped according to their continent of origin.

The Royal Flying Doctor Service base at Dubbo airport has a large visitor information centre, staffed by volunteers, which features a King Air 200 turboprop aircraft and a variety of touch-screen interactive displays illustrating aspects of RFDS operations.

Dubbo has several fine examples of Victorian civic architecture, including the (third) Courthouse (1887), the Lands Office with its use of timber and corrugated iron cladding, and the railway station (1881).

[50] Towards the centre of the city, the older residential areas contain numerous examples of red brick houses built in the "California Bungalow" style architecture of the early 20th century, together with Victorian terraced houses (mostly in the Darling Street area) and a few Edwardian semidetached homes.

[51] The Mindyarra Maintenance Centre is scheduled to open 700 metres to the east of the station in the early 2020s, as the home depot for the NSW TrainLink Regional Train fleet.

[55] BusBiz operates coach services under contract to NSW TrainLink and maintains a depot in the city.

[56] The Dubbo Rams compete in the men's and women's NSW State Basketball Leagues.

The centre hosts meets through the Western Swimming Association (and affiliated clubs Dubbo City Swimtech and Orana Aquatic) and school carnivals.

[57] In 2007, Dubbo hosted the Junior World Orienteering Championships with most of the events held in the granite outcrops of the nearby Sappa Bulga Range.

Named for a famous blacktracker, the Tracker Riley bike path is part of a 12.5-km walking and cycling loop along the Macquarie River.