I.

Introduction

Western Australia, state in western Australia, bordered on the north by the Timor Sea, on the west by the Indian Ocean, on the south by the Indian Ocean and the Great Australian Bight, on the southeast by the state of South Australia, and on the northeast by the Northern Territory. Western Australia is the largest of Australia’s states, covering 2,525,500 sq km (975,100 sq mi), or almost one-third of Australia. The capital of Western Australia is Perth.

II.

Land and Resources

Western Australia is a generally low-lying state, largely comprised of a plateau ranging from 300 to 600 m (1,000 to 2,000 ft) above sea level. Upland regions include the King Leopold Ranges in the far north, the Stirling Range in the far south, and the Hamersley and Carnarvon ranges in the state’s west central region. Western Australia’s highest point, Mount Meharry (1,245 m/4,085 ft), lies in the Hamersley Range. The state has 12,500 km (7,800 mi) of coastline, much of which is lined by broad coastal plains that extend inland to the central plateau. The southwestern coastal area is home to a fertile region called Swanland, but most of Western Australia is sandy and dry with little vegetation. Three large deserts, the northern Great Sandy, the central Gibson, and the southern Great Victoria, dominate vast tracts of the state’s inland regions. Each is characterized by extreme temperatures and scanty rainfall. Outside the deserts, the climate varies from tropical (hot and humid) in the north to temperate in the southwest. The state is a leading producer of iron ore, gold, industrial diamonds, wool, wheat, and alumina.

III.

The People of Western Australia

Western Australia is the most sparsely settled of the Australian states and one of the world’s most sparsely settled regions. It has a population (2004) of 1,982,204, or 9.5 percent of Australia’s total population. The average population density is 0.8 persons per sq km (2.1 per sq mi). However, all but a tiny percentage of the population lives on the coast or in the inland mining settlements, leaving vast areas of the interior uninhabited. In 1991 Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islanders numbered 41,779, or 2.6 percent of the state’s total.

Perth, situated on the estuaries of the Swan and Canning rivers on the southwestern coast, is the largest city as well as the capital of Western Australia. It is also Australia’s most isolated city, lying closer to Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia, than to Canberra, the capital of Australia. Fremantle, just south of Perth, is the chief port of Western Australia. Other important settlements are Bunbury, Geraldton, Albany, and Esperance, all of which are scattered along the southwestern and central coasts. Kalgoorlie-Boulder, in the southern interior, is the center of a major mining region; a pipeline brings water to the arid region from the Mount Charlotte Reservoir created by the Mundaring Weir, or dam, near Perth.

IV.

Economy

Western Australia’s economy has been the fastest growing in Australia since large-scale mining began in the 1960s. In the mid-1990s the state produced about 11 percent of the world’s iron ore, chiefly from the Pilbara region, making it one of the largest producers in the world. Huge diamond deposits were discovered in the Kimberley region in 1979, and by the mid-1990s Australia had become the world’s leading supplier of diamonds by volume and the sixth largest supplier by value. The state leads Australia in gold production; bauxite, nickel, and petroleum are also produced in significant quantities. Plentiful supplies of natural gas and coal have been discovered off Western Australia’s northwestern coast. The nearby, rapidly expanding economies of Southeast Asia are important consumers of Western Australia’s natural resources and other products.

Agriculture, forestry, and fishing also contribute significantly to the state’s economy. The principal crops are wheat, oats, barley, hay, potatoes, tobacco, and orchard fruits. Livestock includes sheep, cattle, pigs, and horses. Cultured pearls are raised on farms near the town of Broome, once a center for pearl and pearl-shell fishing. State forests and timber reserves cover about 283,300 hectares (about 7 million acres).

V.

Government

A governor representing the sovereign of Great Britain is Western Australia’s chief executive; however, the governor holds little real power. In practice, a premier chosen from the legislature and assisted by a cabinet is the head of government. Western Australia has a bicameral (two-house) legislature that is popularly elected. The upper house, or Legislative Council, has 34 members; the lower house, or Legislative Assembly, has 57 members. Western Australia is represented in the federal parliament by 12 members elected to the Senate and 14 members elected to the House of Representatives.

VI.

History

The coast of western Australia was probably visited by Spanish and Portuguese ships in the 16th century, though no record of their visits survives. In 1616 Dutch navigator Dirk Hartog landed on an offshore islet and became the first known European to set foot on Australian soil. Later in the century Dutch explorer and navigator Abel Janszoon Tasman surveyed the northern coast. The western coast was surveyed in later explorations. In 1826 a small group of British soldiers and convicts founded the first settlement in western Australia, though Britain did not take official possession of the land until Captain Charles Howe Fremantle issued a proclamation on May 2, 1829. Later that year, planned colonization began, mostly along the fertile, alluvial land of the upper Swan River. British financier Thomas Peel received large land grants for the first settlements, but ignorance of local conditions and scarcity of labor led the colony into difficulties in the early 1830s. By the 1850s, however, the arrival of convicts had eased the shortage of labor, and explorers had succeeded in finding larger tracts of good land. The expanding settlers conflicted, often violently, with the native Aboriginal people, marking the beginning of an uneasy relationship.

Major gold discoveries in the late 19th century were followed, in 1890, by a grant of responsible government to Western Australia. When Western Australia was granted independence from Great Britain in 1901, a large number of the population wanted to secede rather than federate with the other Australian states; Western Australia joined the federation nonetheless.

The state grew modestly until 1960, when the federal government lifted an embargo (ban) on exports of iron ore, sparking Western Australia’s mineral boom. Over the next two decades, conservative governments, led by the Liberal Party, increased investment in the state. In 1989 Western Australia became the first Australian state to be led by a woman, when Carmen Lawrence of the Labor Party became premier. The Liberal Party returned to power in 1993, largely due to financial scandals under Labor premier Brian Burke.

Western Australia was greatly affected by the High Court of Australia’s landmark ruling in the Mabo v. Queensland case (1992) and the federal parliament’s subsequent Native Land Title Act. The ruling and the act gave Aboriginal people the right to claim title to ancestral land if they could show a “close and continuing” relationship to it. Because mining companies and other interests in Western Australia feared the consequences of native title claims, the state tried to have the act declared unconstitutional. The High Court rejected the state’s challenge. By some estimates, as much as 40 percent of Western Australia could be subject to native title claims.