From the grand Victorian post offices signalling goldrush wealth to the Art Deco cinema or the utilitarian milk bar, these buildings are recognisable because they appear again and again across the country, from Burnie to Broome.

There are local differences, depending on climate, history, landscape and demographics - there is a reason you don’t see many surf clubs in outback Western Australia - but if you’ve travelled around Australia, even the buildings you’ve never seen feel familiar.

The images in this book are a snapshot of the Australian town, captured by commissioned photographers for the National Library of Australia in the 1990s.

The design of regional Australia can move us and make us feel at home; as Tim Ross writes in his foreword, ‘the varied architecture, some good, some bad, tells the story of us’.

Here are our streets, in all their nostalgic, iconic, recognisable glory.

Reviews

Shepparton News

• The architectural styles and streetscapes of Australia's regional towns are undeniably one for the books. Now the National Library of Australia has made it so.

About Regional

• The photographs in Our Streets stretch across the breadth of Australia, including areas close to home such as Goulburn, Wagga Wagga, Wollongong, Bega, Gunning, Yass, Young, Braidwood, Cootamundra, Tathra and Tumut. Read more at: Taking it to our streets: Photographers capture real story of regional life - About Regional

Abbey's Bookseller's Pick

• From Albany to Young and more than 70 other regional centres, this gorgeous book evokes a sense of place that is familiar to anyone who has lived in, or just driven through, these country towns. Whether mining town mansions or humble workers cottages, local variations of Art Deco or contemporary architecture, civic buildings or shopfronts, this is a reminder that architecture is about history and people. Read more at: Our Streets: The Regional Cities and Major Towns Project by National Library of Australia - Abbey's