Location
Corio is a residential and industrial suburb 9km north ofGeelong city. It lies between the Princes Highway and Corio Bay.

Description
Corio is one of Geelong's largest and most diverse suburbs, spreading from the Shell Oil Refinery west into residential areas and north along the coast of Corio Bay.

On Corio Bay, the Shell Refinery's pier docks large tankers while next door,Geelong Grammar School still trains some of the nation's elite students. The Refinery, one of Geelong's largest employers, dominates the coastal skyline. On the other side of the Princes Highway, Corio has a great range of suburban facilities, reserves and shopping centres.

Corio Village Shopping Centre (built in 1973) has department stores, supermarkets and over 90 specialty stores. It is next door to a large community health centre. There are five large reserves with sports facilities and Beckley Park hosts greyhound and harness racing, karting and a mini-bike track.

Its relative closeness to Melbourne makes Corio a popular place to live.

History
Explorers Hume and Hovell recorded that local Aborigines called the bay "Jillong" and the land "Corago", which is probably the source of the name "Corio". Subdivided land was first sold at Cowies Creek in 1852.

By the mid-1860s, Corio was a township with two hotels, a common school, a post office and a scattered population of about 500 people. North of Geelong's two early industrial suburbs, Corio was expected to develop a long time before it did. When the prestigious Geelong Grammar School moved to new buildings and grounds at Corio in 1914, it was still a small and under-developed suburb.

By the mid-1920s, Corio had displaced Cowie as a name, and the area around Cowies Creek became North Shore. The industrialisation around Corio Bay began at the turn of the century and peaked when the Shell Oil Refinery was built in 1954.

The Housing Commission built the first of its Corio estates in the late 1950s and within 20 years had built five estates and 2,500 houses in Corio. During the 1950s, the population grew rapidly and several schools were built in the 1960s and 1970s to serve this dynamic suburb.