[5] Much of the area of Yarralumla consists of open space or non-residential development, including Weston and Stirling Parks, the Royal Canberra Golf Club, and the grounds of Government House.

This area has a blend of original weatherboard, monocrete and brick dwellings as well as some recently rebuilt detached houses, dual occupancies and units.

[6] There is an elongated reserve with a walking and bicycle path running in a southwards direction of the Yarralumla Oval,[2] and to the east of this is the central area of the suburb, where the blocks are larger and the streets are more contoured due to the hilly terrain.

The formation extends from Red Hill and Woden in the South to Lake Burley Griffin in to the north, passing under the suburb of Yarralumla.

In 1828 Henry Donnison, a Sydney merchant who had arrived on the brig Ellen with his wife and family on 29–30 July 1828, was granted an allotment on the western side of West Ridge.

[12] A second grant was made to William Klensendorlffe (a German who had served in the British Navy and arrived free in the Colony in 1818), who bought the land from John Stephen on 7 March 1839.

Tenant farmers were allowed to stay on the land on annual leases, some remaining until 1963 when the Molonglo River was dammed to form Lake Burley Griffin.

The Brickworks tramway, a 3 ft 6 in (1,067 mm) goods railway, was constructed for the transportation of bricks to some of the major building sites in central Canberra.

[8][17] Construction on the Commonwealth nursery and Westbourne Woods arboretum was started in 1914, and a temporary camp was built near the brickworks to accommodate the workers.

Thomas Charles Weston was Officer-in-Charge (Afforestation Branch) in the years 1913 to 1926, and later became Director of City Planting and the Superintendent of Parks and Gardens.

[18] Most of the original Westbourne Woods arboretum is now leased to the Royal Canberra Golf Club, with the remainder forming part of Weston Park.

[5] In Griffin's 1918 document Canberra: Plan of City and Environs, the suburb is shown as an isosceles triangle with two equal length roads leading from Capital Hill to Yarralumla Bay and Clianthus Centre respectively.

[11] In 1922, a workers' tent camp was erected on the eastern side of Stirling Ridge to house the men working on the main intercepting sewer.

[21] The Stirling Park camps were known as Westlake to their new inhabitants, and previously "Gura Bung Dhaura" (stony ground) to the local Aboriginal people.

Prime minister Stanley Bruce promised to fund it during the 1925 election campaign and construction of the Commonwealth Forestry School commenced in 1926 at Westridge near the brickworks and Westbourne Woods.

It is built in the Inter-War Stripped Classical style as a single storey rendered brick building with a parapet and a hipped tiled roof.

This general perception began to alter once Lake Burley Griffin had been created and its surrounds landscaped into parklands; the area soon gained a reputation for its attractive lakeside location.

Many of the original government-built monocrete, brick, and weatherboard houses have been demolished and replaced by larger dwellings of a variety of more modern styles and materials, although this process was more advanced in the central part of the suburb than in its east in 2004.

The higher incomes were derived from the suburb's white-collar base; 68.0% of Yarralumla's workforce was employed as professionals or in managerial posts, compared to 37.7% nationally.

[1] Accommodation was mostly separate houses (65.1%),[1] although the number of residences in the suburb has been increasing through conversion of blocks to dual occupancy and other medium-density-type developments.

[1] The suburb was more oriented towards the Anglo-Celtic majority than the rest of Australia; English was spoken at home by 79.3% of the population, compared to the national average of 72.0%.

[2] The park includes swimming areas, children's play equipment and wading pools, and a miniature railway, and is a popular barbecue spot on weekends.

The Governor-General's residence Government House, which shares the name Yarralumla, is located at the western end of the suburb in 53 ha (130 acres) of parkland.

[2] The Yarralumla brickworks were the first industrial manufacturing facility in the ACT; they were closed temporarily several times due to the Great Depression and both World Wars.

Examples of regionally styled chanceries include the embassies of Saudi Arabia and Thailand,[57][58] and the High Commissions of India and Papua New Guinea.

The embassy compound was built in a "typically American" Georgian style, using Australian materials, and was inspired by several buildings designed by Christopher Wren for Virginia at the beginning of the 18th century.

[61] The French embassy includes the French-Australian War Memorial opened in 1961, which has a sculpture by André Bizette-Lindet called Winged Victory.

[2][3] The Lennox Gardens, Yarralumla Yacht Club, Albert Hall and the Hotel Canberra are located in the eastern end of the suburb.

Located on Commonwealth Avenue,[3] the Hotel Canberra opened in 1924 to accommodate politicians when Parliament was in session; Prime Minister James Scullin stayed there to avoid the running costs of the official residence, The Lodge during the Great Depression.

It has been heritage listed as an example of the distinctive Garden-Pavilion style of architect John Smith Murdoch in line with the garden city design of Burley Griffin.