The first settlement in Hobart was started in 1803 as a penal colony at Risdon Cove on the eastern shores of the Derwent River, amid British concerns over the presence of French explorers. In 1804 it was moved to a better location at the present site of Hobart at Sullivan's Cove. The city was named after Lord Hobart the Colonial Secretary. The area's original inhabitants were members of the semi-nomadic Mouheneer tribe. A series of bloody encounters with the Europeans and the effects of diseases brought by the settlers forced away the aboriginal population, which was rapidly replaced by free settlers and the convict population. Hobart is the state capital and most populous city of the Australian island state of Tasmania. ... Risdon Cove was the site of the first European settlement in Van Diemens Land, now Tasmania, the smallest Australian state. ... The Derwent is a river in Tasmania, Australia. ... See also explorations, sea explorers, astronaut, conquistador, travelogue, the History of Science and Technology and Biography. ... Sullivans Cove, on the Derwent River, Tasmania, was the initial landing site of what is now the city of Hobart. ... Robert Hobart, 4th Earl of Buckinghamshire (6 May 1760 - 4 February 1816), known as Lord Hobart from 1793 to 1804, was a Tory Party politician of the late 18th and early 19th century. ... The Tasmanian Aboriginals are the indigenous people of the island state of Tasmania, Australia. ...

Charles Darwin visited Hobart Town in February, 1836 as part of the Beagle expedition. He writes of Hobart and the Derwent estuary in his Voyage of the Beagle In his lifetime Charles Darwin gained international fame as an influential scientist examining controversial topics: portrait by Julia Margaret Cameron. ... A watercolour by ships artist Conrad Martens painted during the survey of Tierra del Fuego shows the Beagle being hailed by native Fuegians. ...

...The lower parts of the hills which skirt the bay are cleared; and the bright yellow fields of corn, and dark green ones of potatoes, appear very luxuriant... I was chiefly struck with the comparative fewness of the large houses, either built or building. Hobart Town, from the census of 1835, contained 13,826 inhabitants, and the whole of Tasmania 36,505.

But since the Derwent River was one of Australia's finest deepwater ports and was the centre of the Southern Ocean whaling and seal trade, it rapidly grew into a major port, with allied industries such as ship-building. Hobart Town became a city in 1842, and was renamed Hobart in 1875.