Bourke Street is one of the main streets in the Melbourne central business district and a core feature of the Hoddle Grid. It was traditionally the entertainment hub of inner-city Melbourne, and is now also a popular tourist destination and tram thoroughfare.

During the Marvellous Melbourne era, Bourke Street was the location of many of the city's theatres and cinemas. Today it continues as a major retail shopping precinct with the Bourke Street Mall running between Elizabeth and Swanston Streets, numerous offices to the west end and restaurants to the east. Its liveliness and activity has often been contrasted with the sobering formality of nearby Collins Street. For this reason, "Busier than Bourke Street" is a popular colloquialism denoting a crowded or busy environment.

Bourke Street is named for Irish-born British Army officer Sir Richard Bourke, who served as the Governor of New South Wales from 1831 and 1837 during the drafting of the Hoddle Grid.

Bourke Street runs roughly from east to west and bisects the city centre along its long axis. Bourke Street runs parallel between Little Collins Street to the south and Little Bourke Street to the north.

There are two primary stretches of Bourke Street, split by Southern Cross station: the historic city centre and the modern Docklands precinct. The city centre portion runs from Spring Street in the east (overlooked by Parliament House) to Spencer Street and Southern Cross station. The newer Docklands end continues on the other side of the station (which is only accessible to pedestrians) and finishes at its intersection with Collins Street further west.

Having been laid out as part of the Hoddle Grid in 1837, Bourke Street was considered "out of town" until the 1840s when the western end saw the opening of St Patrick's Hall, the first synagogue and the first public hospital. During the 1850s it gained a reputation as a busy thoroughfare popular as the centre for Saturday nightlife. As retail presence increased with department store Buckley & Nunn opening a succession of buildings in 1851 and rival Myer in 1911, the street was often compared to London's Oxford Street.

Melbourne's first theatre opened on Bourke Street as the Pavilion (1841), and by the late 1840s the east end was established as Melbourne's main entertainment zone. Theatres and public halls were complemented by billiard halls, cigar divans, rifle galleries, bowling alleys and sideshows. While the early evening crowd trod Bourke Street's pavements for entertainment or for show, the night-time street was also notorious for public disorder, fights, brothel touts and drinking and drunkenness.

Cheap restaurants appeared from the 1870s, when Parer's Hotel and Crystal Tea Rooms became a Melbourne institution, while the Café de Paris was a favourite literary and artistic meeting place. Ellis Bird's Books opened in 1925 at number 21 and Margaret Bird and her husband built up a haven for the literati for 30 years. Twentieth-century restaurants such as Florentino's, Pellegrini's and the Society Café have become Melbourne institutions.