Where in the world?

Have just come across this marvellous online list “Victorian BDM Place Name Abbreviations List”

The list is comprised of place name abbreviations used in the Victorian Births, Deaths and Marriages registry indexes. It is useful for all three versions of the indexes.

The list currently contains 3,215 abbreviations, including abbreviation errors, and is a work in progress. Please be aware that every effort has been made to ensure that place names are correct to the abbreviations. Research has been done with various resources to prove a birth or death in the locality that matches each abbreviation.

Abbreviations are generally representative of a settlement, town or suburb, but can be a shire, county, parish, area, creek, river, gully, forest, hill, mountain, road, hospital, asylum, convent or ship. And includes some interesting examples – ‘A Rat Hosp’ is Ararat Hospital, 'Greg' is Gre Gre South, ‘Astrens St’ is not some obscure street in a Melbourne suburb, but the abbreviation used for the McTavish births at Ashens Station in 1859.

Shed at 'Longerenong' probably built by Donald McTavish c1860

In 1856 Donald & Jane McTavish and their family moved from Hedi (Oxley's Plains near Wangaratta) to Ashens to work as a shepherd and carpenter for Dugald McPherson. They lived at an outstation, in a shepherd’s hut at the northern tip of Taylors (Drung Drung) Lake, then part of the Ashens Run, some 5 miles from the homestead.

A week before Christmas in 1856 Jane gave birth to a frail baby boy - Donald – with the help of the station women. Then in February 1859 Jane gave birth to her 9^th child – Margaret. (McTavish information from “Thy portion”). 

The Garden Shed today

Some abbreviations can represent multiple places (but at least you know the possible options) and there are also multiple abbreviations for a single place from different time periods (there are over 15 derivative abbreviations of Williamstown).
Some places no longer exist or are now known under a different name. They are indicated in the comments if known.
All in all a valuable asset if you're trawling through the BDM registers.