Avoca is a small village located 81 kilometres (50 mi) south-east of Launceston

Launceston, Tasmania

Launceston is a city in the north of the state of Tasmania, Australia at the junction of the North Esk and South Esk rivers where they become the Tamar River. Launceston is the second largest city in Tasmania after the state capital Hobart...

 in the island of Tasmania

Tasmania

Tasmania is an Australian island and state. It is south of the continent, separated by Bass Strait. The state includes the island of Tasmania—the 26th largest island in the world—and the surrounding islands. The state has a population of 507,626 , of whom almost half reside in the greater Hobart...

. At the 2006 census

Census in Australia

The Australian census is administered once every five years by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. The most recent census was conducted on 9 August 2011; the next will be conducted in 2016. Prior to the introduction of regular censuses in 1961, they had also been run in 1901, 1911, 1921, 1933,...

, Avoca and the surrounding area had a population of 123.

Avoca is situated on the banks of the South Esk River

South Esk River

The South Esk River is the longest river in Tasmania. It starts in the mountains near Fingal flowing through Avoca, Evandale, Longford, Hadspen and finally Launceston. The river is dammed at Trevallyn Dam near Launceston and used for the city's Hydro Electricity scheme...

 and was first settled in the 1830s. It was originally named 'St Paul's Plains' by the explorers who surveyed the area in 1833. The area was officially settled in 1834 as a farming, coal

Coal

Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock usually occurring in rock strata in layers or veins called coal beds or coal seams. The harder forms, such as anthracite coal, can be regarded as metamorphic rock because of later exposure to elevated temperature and pressure...

 and tin

Tin

Tin is a chemical element with the symbol Sn and atomic number 50. It is a main group metal in group 14 of the periodic table. Tin shows chemical similarity to both neighboring group 14 elements, germanium and lead and has two possible oxidation states, +2 and the slightly more stable +4...

 mining

Mining

Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the earth, from an ore body, vein or seam. The term also includes the removal of soil. Materials recovered by mining include base metals, precious metals, iron, uranium, coal, diamonds, limestone, oil shale, rock...

 village. Today mines in the area have closed and Avoca serves only as a farming community.

A number of historic buildings exist in the small town, including the St Thomas Anglican Church completed on 8 May 1842, the parish hall completed around 1850, and the Union Hotel built in 1842. Nearby locations include Rossarden

Rossarden, Tasmania

Rossarden is an old mining town in central Tasmania, located 19 km from Avoca. Located in a valley below Stacks Bluff , it is an old tin mining town, the mine closed in 1982. Prior to this Rossarden was one of Australia's major tin producing towns...

, Fingal

Fingal, Tasmania

Fingal is a small Australian town located in Fingal Valley in the north-east of Tasmania, on the Esk Highway.-History:The Fingal area was surveyed in 1824 by Roderic O'Connor and John Helder Wedge, and is believed to have been named after Fingal's Cave in the Inner Hebrides of Scotland rather than...

and Storys Creek.