Gunning is a small town on the Old Hume Highway, between Goulburn and Yass in the Southern Tablelands of New South Wales, Australia, about 260 km south-west of Sydney and 75 km north of the national capital, Canberra. (Nearby towns are Cullerin, Gundaroo, Dalton, Yass, Murrumbateman and Goulburn.) At the 2016 census, Gunning had a population of 659. The Shire of Gunning (which was amalgamated into Upper Lachlan Shire in 2004) had a population of 2,280. Gunning has a number of heritage-listed sites, including the Gunning railway station.
Gunning was originally a coach stop, and service centre for the surrounding farms mainly growing Merino sheep. It has a police station and court house, post office, and school. The Main South railway from Sydney arrived in 1875 and was completed through to Albury in 1882. Gunning railway station is served by one daily NSW TrainLink XPT service in each direction operating between Sydney and Melbourne, and one weekly Xplorer service operating between Sydney and Griffith.
The Gunning region was originally home to two Australian Aboriginal language groups, the Gundungurra people in the north and the Ngunnawal people in the south. The region (specifically Gundaroo) was first explored by Europeans in 1820, and settled the next year by Hamilton Hume. In 1824, Hume and William Hovell left here to discover the overland route to Port Phillip Bay where Melbourne is sited. Land sales began in 1838.