Griffith is an early inner-south suburb of Canberra

Canberra

Canberra is the capital city of Australia. With a population of over 345,000, it is Australia's largest inland city and the eighth-largest city overall. The city is located at the northern end of the Australian Capital Territory , south-west of Sydney, and north-east of Melbourne...

, Australian Capital Territory

Australian Capital Territory

The Australian Capital Territory, often abbreviated ACT, is the capital territory of the Commonwealth of Australia and is the smallest self-governing internal territory...

, Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

. Griffith is named after Sir Samuel Griffith

Samuel Griffith

Sir Samuel Walker Griffith GCMG QC, was an Australian politician, Premier of Queensland, Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia and a principal author of the Constitution of Australia.-Early life:...

, who was chosen in 1903 as the first Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia

High Court of Australia

The High Court of Australia is the supreme court in the Australian court hierarchy and the final court of appeal in Australia. It has both original and appellate jurisdiction, has the power of judicial review over laws passed by the Parliament of Australia and the parliaments of the States, and...

 and retained his position until retirement in 1919. Streets in Griffith are named after explorers.

Griffith contains the Manuka Shopping Centre

Manuka, Australian Capital Territory

Manuka is an area in the Inner South district of Canberra, Australia covering parts of the suburbs of Griffith and Forrest. Manuka Shops, Manuka Oval, Manuka Swimming Pool, and Manuka Circle take their name from the park in the area.- Origin of name :...

, one of the earliest shopping areas built in Canberra. Noted buildings in the suburb include the Russian Embassy and St Paul's Anglican Church.

Griffith, sized at approximately 3 km², is one of Canberra's oldest suburbs, with several of its streets designed according to Walter Burley Griffin

Walter Burley Griffin

Walter Burley Griffin was an American architect and landscape architect, who is best known for his role in designing Canberra, Australia's capital city...

's original designs for Canberra. The suburb has 20 parks covering nearly 12% of the total area.

Demography

On Census night 2006, Griffith had a population of 3095 people, of which 2305 were in the workforce. The major industry of Griffith's citizens is public administration & safety, and a majority of Griffith workers are professionals.
The average Griffith citizen is 37-years of age, earning a mean weekly gross income of approximately $935/week.

Geology

Rocks in Griffith are from the Silurian

Silurian

The Silurian is a geologic period and system that extends from the end of the Ordovician Period, about 443.7 ± 1.5 Mya , to the beginning of the Devonian Period, about 416.0 ± 2.8 Mya . As with other geologic periods, the rock beds that define the period's start and end are well identified, but the...

 age. Mount Painter Volcanics dark grey to green grey dacitic tuff

Tuff

Tuff is a type of rock consisting of consolidated volcanic ash ejected from vents during a volcanic eruption. Tuff is sometimes called tufa, particularly when used as construction material, although tufa also refers to a quite different rock. Rock that contains greater than 50% tuff is considered...

 is found to the south west of the Deakin Fault.
Canberra Formation, calcareous shale

Shale

Shale is a fine-grained, clastic sedimentary rock composed of mud that is a mix of flakes of clay minerals and tiny fragments of other minerals, especially quartz and calcite. The ratio of clay to other minerals is variable. Shale is characterized by breaks along thin laminae or parallel layering...

 is in the north east of the Deakin Fault.
The Deakin Fault is named after the suburb, and in the suburb runs from Canberra Avenue at Manuka to Frome Street. The Deakin fault is an important fault running in the north west direction across most of Canberra.

Education

Griffith is home to Canberra's first private Catholic

Catholic

The word catholic comes from the Greek phrase , meaning "on the whole," "according to the whole" or "in general", and is a combination of the Greek words meaning "about" and meaning "whole"...

 boys school, St Edmund's College

St Edmund's College, Canberra

St Edmund's College, is a private, Catholic, day school for boys, located in Griffith, a suburb of Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia.The college was established in 1954 by the Christian Brothers as St Edmund's War Memorial College...

, a Christian Brothers

Congregation of Christian Brothers

The Congregation of Christian Brothers is a worldwide religious community within the Catholic Church, founded by Blessed Edmund Rice. The Christian Brothers, as they are commonly known, chiefly work for the evangelisation and education of youth, but are involved in many ministries, especially with...

 school opened in 1954. There are 5 other schools located in the suburb.

Notable places

The Canberra South Bowling Club on the corner of Austin and La Perouse Streets was designed by the architect Harry Seidler

Harry Seidler

Harry Seidler, AC OBE was an Austrian-born Australian architect who is considered to be one of the leading exponents of Modernism's methodology in Australia and the first architect to fully express the principles of the Bauhaus in Australia.Harry Seidler designed more than 180 buildings and he...

and completed in 1959.http://www.slv.vic.gov.au/pictoria/a/2/3/doc/a23177.shtmlhttp://www.archinform.net/arch/15459.htm?ID=09d7c760cb37e7166cffcbbabd74dddc

Griffith also contains the street of Flinders Way, which appears as the second most expensive street in the Australian version of Monopoly at the price of $350.