Jacana is a suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 16 km north from Melbourne’s central business district. Its local government area is theCity of Hume. At the 2011 Census, Jacana had a population of 1,940. Jacana is located north of the Western Ring Road, south of Johnstone Street and between the Craigieburn railway line and Moonee Ponds Creek.
The name Jacana was applied to an area between Broadmeadows and Glenroy in the 1950s by the Housing Commission of Victoria (HCV). The name comes from Jacana Street, to the east of the Craigieburn railway line (therefore, technically not in Jacana itself). Both the street and the suburb are slightly to the north of the Jacana railway station, which was built to service the suburb in 1959. However, Jacana as a built landscape did not spring fully formed under the aegis of the HCV.
