Goulburn is a railhead on the Main Southern line, and regional health & government services centre, supporting the surrounding pastoral industry as well as being a stopover for travellers on the Hume Highway.

The process displaced the local indigenous Mulwaree population and the introduction of exotic livestock drove out a large part of the Aboriginal peoples' food supply.

[3] The Mulwaree People lived throughout the area covering Goulburn, Crookwell and Yass and belong to the Ngunawal language group.

Their neighbours were the Dharawal to their north and Dharug surrounding Sydney, Darkinung, Wiradjuri, Ngunawal and Thurrawal, eastwards peoples.

[8] It had a courthouse, police barracks, churches, hospital and post office and was the centre of a great sheep and farming area.

Goulburn became a major railway centre with a roundhouse[11] and engine servicing facilities and a factory which made pre-fabricated concrete components for signal boxes and station buildings.

Rail First Asset Management (previously known as CFCL Australia) operate the Goulburn Railway Workshops.

St Saviour's Cathedral, designed by Edmund Thomas Blacket, was completed in 1884 with the tower being added in 1988 to commemorate the Bicentenary of Australia.

The first, unofficial, proclamation was claimed by virtue of Royal Letters Patent issued by Queen Victoria on 14 March 1863 to establish the Diocese of Goulburn.

This was the last instance in which Letters Patent were used in this manner in the British Empire, as they had been significantly discredited for use in the colonies, and were soon to be declared formally invalid and unenforceable in this context.

[13] Several legal cases[14] over the preceding decade in particular had already established that the monarch had no ecclesiastical jurisdiction in colonies possessing responsible government.

An absolute and retrospective declaration to this effect was made in 1865 in the Colenso Case,[13] by the Judiciary Committee of the Privy Council.

An education strike was called in response to a demand for installation of three extra toilets at a local Catholic primary school, St Brigid's.

In 1963 the prime minister, Robert Menzies, made state aid for science blocks part of his party's platform.

Of these: Goulburn is located a small distance east of the peak ridge of the Great Dividing Range and is 690 metres (2,264 ft) above sea level.

The Wollondilly then flows north-east, into Lake Burragorang (Warragamba Dam) and eventually into the Tasman Sea via the Hawkesbury River.

Owing to its elevation, Goulburn has an oceanic climate (Cfb) with warm summers and cool to cold winters; with a high diurnal range.

Snow occasionally falls,[37] although rarely in significant quantities due to the rainshadow brought about by the hills to the west-northwest of Goulburn (around Crookwell).

As a major settlement of southern New South Wales, Goulburn was the administrative centre for the region and was the location for important buildings of the district.

[40] The Academy has relocated to the former campus of the Goulburn College of Advanced Education located on the banks of the Wollondilly River.

The New South Wales Police Academy is now the largest education institution for law enforcement officers in the southern hemisphere.

[41] One of these prisoners was Ivan Robert Marko Milat (27 December 1944 – 27 October 2019) an Australian serial killer who was convicted of the backpacker murders in 1996.

The Lieder Theatre Company presents up to five major performance projects each year, along with numerous community events, readings, workshops, and short seasons of experimental and new work.

Goulburn benefited from the 1992 Hume Highway bypass, prompting significant civic rejuvenation and removing 23,000 cars from the city each day.

Goulburn receives five free-to-air television networks relayed from Canberra, and broadcast from nearby Mt Gray: A much smaller retransmission site also exists to cover residences in the suburb of Eastgrove.

Manfred was a prominent local architect responsible for many of the buildings in the city, including the first public swimming baths opened in 1892; the old Town Hall constructed in 1888; the Goulburn Base Hospital designed in 1886; the old Fire Station built in 1890; the Masonic Temple built in 1928; he also designed the earlier building of 1890 it replaced.

After closure it became the Goulburn Rail Heritage Centre, a railway museum with preserved steam and diesel locomotives as well as many interesting examples of rolling stock.

Some minor rail operators such as RailPower have used the site to restore diesel locomotives to working order for main line use.