Dalton New South Wales |
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Dalton hotel
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Coordinates | 34°43′0″S 149°12′0″E / 34.71667°S 149.20000°ECoordinates: 34°43′0″S 149°12′0″E / 34.71667°S 149.20000°E | ||||||||||||||
Population | 195 (2016 census) | ||||||||||||||
Postcode(s) | 2581 | ||||||||||||||
Elevation | 540 m (1,772 ft) | ||||||||||||||
Location | |||||||||||||||
LGA(s) | Upper Lachlan Shire | ||||||||||||||
State electorate(s) | Goulburn | ||||||||||||||
Federal Division(s) | Hume | ||||||||||||||
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Dalton /ˈdəltən/ is a small inland country town in the Southern Tablelands of New South Wales, Australia in Upper Lachlan Shire. Dalton is north of the Hume Highway that joins Sydney and Melbourne, between Goulburn and Yass in southern New South Wales, 255 kilometres (158 mi) southwest of Sydney and 79 kilometres (49 mi) north of the national capital, Canberra. Nearby towns are Cullerin, Gundaroo, Gunning, Yass, and Murrumbateman.
The Monaro region is renowned for its sheep wool industry, notably for the Merino breed. The dry-land farming supports both summer and winter wheat, and some other cereal crops, but agriculture also extends to cattle production for meat.
The vibrancy of Dalton's heyday in the 19th century as a sheep-shearing centre is gone, lost in 1875 when the train line was routed through nearby Gunning rather than Dalton. Today the town is taking on a new role as a rural-residential centre, with generally well-maintained wide streets and churches, a school, a viable hotel (pub), post office services, and a petrol station.
The underlying rock strata of the region from Dalton to Lake George some 40 kilometres (25 mi) east is geologically active, with the lake formed along a fault system running north-south.
Dalton has a significantly higher rate of earthquakes and tremors than the background rate for the eastern highlands of Australia, and because their foci are very shallow (usually less than 1 km deep) the damage they cause is often disproportionately high: events as low as magnitude ML3.0 have damaged buildings in the region.