Port Melbourne covers a large area, which includes the distinct localities of Fishermans Bend, Garden City and Beacon Cove.

The most prominent early resident of the area now known as Port Melbourne was Captain Wilbraham Frederick Evelyn Liardet, who arrived in 1839 and established a hotel, jetty, and mail service.

[2][3] Liardet later stated that before his arrival the surveyor William Wedge Darke and his family had camped on the beach in their two roomed, carpeted wooden caravan known as 'Darke's Ark'.

[4] Liardet credited Wedge with cutting the first track to the beach through the tea tree scrub and hoisting a barrel on a pole, on a high section of ground, to point the way back to the Melbourne settlement.

[citation needed] With an increasing number of ships looking to berth, Sandridge became a thriving transport hub.

[citation needed] The disused Sandridge Bridge takes its name from this historic railway line.

[citation needed] In the early years of Port Melbourne, the suburb was separated from neighbouring Albert Park by a large shallow lagoon.

Station and Princes Piers were major places of arrival to Australia for immigrants prior to the availability of affordable air travel.

The next most common countries of birth were England 5.4%, New Zealand 2.6%, Greece 2.0%, United States of America 1.0% and Italy 1.0%.

However, a direct tram journey between St Kilda and Port Melbourne is not possible and currently requires a change of routes at Southbank, which is a 10-kilometre round trip.

Cargo traffic takes place further west, near the mouth of the Yarra River, principally at Webb Dock.

Port Melbourne has undergone a major demographic shift in the past twenty years, from one of the cheapest and poorest suburbs in the city to one of the most expensive and wealthiest.

Longstaff Field has been upgraded to include an artificial infield and competition-standard lighting, allowing the club to play night games.

The Melbourne International Shooting Club (MISC), formed in 1955 and moved to the present site in the late 1970s, is an ISSF-approved shooting complex for target pistol and small-bore rifle shooting disciplines and was the venue of choice for the 2005 Summer Deaflympics and the 2006 Commonwealth Games events, and is affiliated with several umbrella bodies including the Victorian Amateur Pistol Association (VAPA), Target Rifle Victoria (TRV) and IPSC Australia.

It operates the 966 m (1,056 yd) Melbourne International Kart Raceway, located at the corner of Todd Road and Cook Street north of the West Gate Freeway Today it is the largest go-kart club in Victoria and the second largest within Australia, having hosted rounds of the Australian Kart Championship and Rotax Pro Tour as well as the popular annual City of Melbourne Titles and Monthly Club Days, and once held the CIK/FIA Oceania Championships in 1997.

Port Melbourne features three distinctive localities, with identities separated from the main section of the neighbourhood.

It comprises semi-attached single and double-storey houses arranged around a series of public open spaces, in a distorted Beaux-Arts layout.

It comprises approximately 1100 dwellings in a mixture of low-rise medium density and high-rise housing, with a small supermarket, some commercial space, a small number of cafes and restaurants and a leisure complex including a gym, swimming pool and tennis courts.

Along the foreshore is a series of 11–14-storey high-rise apartment towers with a small amount of very upmarket low-rise housing at the western end, directly fronting Sandridge Beach.

The development was completed in stages,[13] working west from Princes Street, and this is reflected in the different styles of architecture.

Habitation was in rough shacks along the Bend, made from corrugated iron, flattened kerosene tins or wood.

Water was collected from hanging out sail canvases, and stored in iron tanks or casks milk came from a nearby farm.

Fishermans Bend is a primary industrial centre at the foot of the West Gate Bridge and contains major establishments for the Defence Science and Technology Organisation, Holden, Hawker de Havilland, GKN Aerospace Engineering Services, the Cooperative Research Centre for Advanced Composite Structures, Kraft Foods, Toyota Australia, port security and a campus of RMIT University.