Forest Hill is a suburb of

Melbourne Melbourne ( , ; Boonwurrung language, Boonwurrung/ or ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city of the States and territories of Australia, Australian state of Victori ...

, Victoria,

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, 18 km east of Melbourne's

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, located within the City of Whitehorse

local government area A local government area (LGA) is an administrative division of a country that a local government is responsible for. The size of an LGA varies by country but it is generally a subdivision of a federated state, state, province, division (politica ...

. Forest Hill recorded a population of 10,780 at the 2021 census. Forest Hill was recently ranked 93rd on Melbourne's most liveable suburb list, which was higher than other nearby popular suburbs such as Bentleigh, Mount Waverley and Glen Waverley. The suburb is primarily made up of low to medium density residential housing.

History

Forest Hill Post Office opened on 1 March 1874 in the then rural area. It closed in 1895, reopened in 1902 and closed in 1976. The Forest Hills Centre office opened in 1965 shortly after the centre opened and was renamed Forest Hill in 1985. Until 1994, Forest Hill was a part of the City of Nunawading local government area, but in December 1994 became part of the City of Whitehorse following the amalgamation of the former cities of

Box Hill, Victoria Box Hill is an Eastern suburbs (Melbourne), eastern suburb of Melbourne, Victoria (Australia), Victoria, Australia, east of the city's Melbourne City Centre, Central Business District (CBD), located within the City of Whitehorse Local governm ...

and Nunawading.

Demographics

In the 2016 census, the population of Forest Hill was 10,626, approximately 52.5% female and 47.5% male. 56.6% of people living in the suburb of Forest Hill were born in Australia. The other top responses for country of birth were China (excludes SARs and Taiwan) 9.8%, India 3.4%, Malaysia 2.8%, Vietnam 2.4% and England 2.2%. In Forest Hill 57.4% of people only spoke English at home. Other languages spoken at home included Mandarin 11.0%, Cantonese 6.8%, Greek 2.9%, Vietnamese 1.7% and Italian 1.7%. 47.6% of Forest Hill households spoke a language other than English. The religious makeup of Forest Hill is No Religion, so described 33.1%, Catholic 20.2%, Not stated 7.6%, Anglican 7.5% and Buddhism 6.2%. Christianity was the largest religious group reported overall (50.8%) (this figure excludes not stated responses).

Industry

Fremantle Media's Melbourne production facilities are located on Hawthorn Road Forest Hill, where the soap opera ''

Neighbours ''Neighbours'' is an Australian television soap opera that has aired since 18 March 1985. It was created by television executive Reg Watson. The Seven Network commissioned the show following the success of Watson's earlier soap '' Sons and ...

'' is produced.History of ATV10 Melbourne
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Education

Forest Hill has one school located within the suburb, Parkmore Primary School. Other public and private schools are located nearby in adjoining suburbs and within short walking distance: Burwood Heights Primary School, Forest Hill Secondary College, Emmaus Catholic College and St. Timothy's Catholic Primary School.

Sport

Local sport includes many regular events and team sports. Nunawading Aqualink is located within the suburb, (Husband Road) containing an indoor, olympic-size swimming pool and children's pool. It also has a football Club The Forest Hill Zebras (Australian Rules Div. 4 Eastern Football League) at the Forest Hill Reserve (Husband Road), and a cricket club the Forest Hill Zebras (various divisions) at Mahoneys Reserve (Mahoneys Road) which also includes various soccer clubs, a clinic, a table tennis club, multiple badminton clubs and the 2nd Tally Ho scouts.

Shopping

The Forest Hill Chase Shopping Centre includes a number of major retailers, such as Coles, Target, Harris Scarfe,

JB Hi-Fi JB Hi-Fi Limited is an Australian consumer electronics retail company. It is publicly listed on the Australian Securities Exchange. Its headquarters are located in Southbank, Melbourne, Victoria. As of June 2024, the company operates 330 sto ...

, Rebel Sport, TK Maxx,

Aldi Aldi (German pronunciation: ), stylised as ALDI, is the common company brand name of two German multinational family-owned discount supermarket chains operating over 12,000 stores in 18 countries. The chain was founded by brothers Karl and ...

Woolworths, Hoyts Cinemas and a number of restaurants. There is also a Zone Bowling centre (formerly AMF) and Timezone.

References

{{City of Whitehorse suburbs Suburbs of Melbourne Suburbs of the City of Whitehorse