Spotswood is a suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 7 km south-west of Melbourne's central business district. Its local government area is the City of Hobsons Bay. At the 2011 Census, Spotswood had a population of 2,339. The suburb is bounded generally by the Geelong railway line in the west, the West Gate Freeway in the north, the Yarra River in the east and by the boundaries of the properties below Burleigh Street in the south. Spotswood was named after J.S. Spottiswoode (shortened Spotswood), one of the first farmers who owned much of the area in the 1840s.