This article describes the history of the Australian colony and state of Victoria. Before British colonisation of Australia, many Aboriginal peoples lived in the area now known as Victoria. A couple of years after the first Europeans settled there, in September 1836 the area became part of the colony of New South Wales, known as the District of Port Phillip. From 1851 until 1901 it became the Colony of Victoria, with its own government within the British Empire. In 1901 it became a state of the new Commonwealth of Australia.