Stratford is a town on the Avon River in Victoria, Australia, 232 kilometres (144 mi) east of Melbourne on the Princes Highway in Shire of Wellington.

In 1998 the town formally became a member of the Stratford Sister Cities program to promote friendship and cultural exchange between participating countries.

The land around the Avon River was occupied by the Brayakuloong people of the Gunai/Kurnai indigenous nation for thousands of years prior to European settlement.

European settlement did not take place without resistance, and in return, massacres were inflicted by Angus McMillan and others on Gunai people, especially between the years of 1840 and 1850.

In 1863 Reverend Friedrich Hagenauer established Ramahyuck Mission on the banks of the Avon River near Lake Wellington to house the Ganai survivors from west and central Gippsland.

The name combines "Ramah", the home of Samuel in the First Book of Kings, with "yuck", an Aboriginal term reputedly meaning "our place".