Western Australia
State of Australia, bounded on the north and west by the Indian Ocean,
on the east by Northern Territory and South Australia, on the
south by the Southern Ocean
Area:
2,525,500 sq km/974,843 sq mi
Capital:
Perth
Towns and Cities:
Fremantle (main port), Bunbury, Geraldton, Kalgoorlie-Boulder, Albany,
Broome
Features:
Largest state in Australia, occupying nearly one-third of the continent;
territory includes the Monte Bello Islands; Cocos Islands; Christmas
Island; Nullarbor Plain; Gibson, Sandy, and Great Victoria deserts;
Ningaloo Reef; Purnululu National Park; Shark Bay World Heritage
Area; many unusual flora and fauna (karri, jarrah, and tingle
trees; more than 8,000 species of wildflowers; black swan)
Products:
Wheat, fresh and dried fruit, beef, dairy products, wool, wine, natural
gas, oil, iron, gold, nickel, diamonds, bauxite, cultured and
freshwater pearls, timber, fish
Population:
(1996) 1,726,100
History:
First European to land was Dutch navigator Dirck Hartog in 1616; visited
by Englishman William Dampier in 1688; a short-lived convict settlement
at King George Sound in 1826; first non-convict settlement founded
on Swan River (at Perth) in 1829; governed at first by New South
Wales; became self- governing in 1890; became a state in 1901.
Physical
Western Australia has a coastline of about 7,000 km/4,350 mi. The south
and west coasts are generally flat and sandy, with comparatively
few natural harbours. The coast of the Kimberley region in the
northeast of the state is broken and fringed with numerous islands.
Most of the interior is an immense arid plateau, with an altitude
of 300-600 m/1,300-1,970 ft above sea-level, its surface consisting
in many parts of sand dunes. The Great Sandy Desert lies in the
north of the state, the Gibson Desert in the centre, and the western
parts of the Great Victoria Desert and Nullarbor Plain in the
south.
In the Kimberley district in the far northeast of the state
the main range of hills is the King Leopold Range, the highest
point of which is Mount Broome (926 m/3,038 ft). In the Pilbara
region of the northwest, about 1,000 km/621 mi north of Perth,
between the Fortescue and Ashburton rivers, the highest range
is the Hamersley, with Mount Meharry (1,245 m/4,085 ft, the highest
peak in Western Australia), and Mount Bruce (1,226 m/4,022 ft).
The Darling Range, which runs parallel with the southwest coast
for 483 km/ 300 mi from Moora, 72 km/45 mi north of Perth, to
Point d'Entrecasteaux on the southwest coast, reaches its highest
point, 582 m/1,909 ft above sea-level, at Mount Cooke in the Cockburn
Sound district. In the south of the state the highest range is
the Stirling Range, which extends north of Albany on the southwest
coast; its highest peak is Bluff Knoll (1,109 m/3,638 ft).
The principal rivers are: in the north, the Ord, Durack, Drysdale,
King Edward, and Fitzroy; in the northwest, the De Gray, Yule,
Fortescue, and Ashburton. Flowing to the west coast are the Gascoyne,
Wooramel, Murchison, Greenough, and Swan (on which stands Perth),
the Murray, and the Collie; and to the south coast, the Blackwood,
Deep, Frankland, Gairdner, Fitzgerald, and Phillips rivers.
Lake Argyle, in the Kimberley region in the northeast of the
state, with an area of 900 sq km/347 sq mi, is the largest man-made
expanse of water in Australia. It was created in 1971-2 as part
of the Ord River Irrigation Project. The project was established
in 1961, when Lake Kununurra was created by damming the River
Ord. The lakes of the interior are, except after the occasional
heavy rains, merely immense salt marshes.
The Kimberley region in the northeast of the state has small
patches of tropical rainforest along the coast between Broome
and the border with Northern Territory. There are about 2,450,000
ha/6,000,000 acres of forest (particularly jarrah and Karri) in
Western Australia, mostly in the southwest of the state. The forested
area includes national parks, nature reserves, and conservation
parks.
Climate
There are marked climatic differences within the state. The southwest
region, where Perth is located, has a Mediterranean climate, with
four distinct seasons, including hot, dry summers and mild, wet
winters. The northwest of the state has a tropical climate, with
two seasons, the wet and the dry (warm, dry winters and monsoonal,
humid summers). Occasionally this area is subject to tropical
cyclones. There are also large desert and semi-desert areas: most
of the state is very arid with less than 250 mm/10 in of rain
per year. This rainfall is unreliable and ineffective because
of a high evaporation rate. The average annual rainfall in Perth
is 865.8 mm/34 in. Mean summer temperatures in most of Western
Australia are over 23ºC/ 73ºF, and Western Australia has an average
of 7.9 hours of sunshine daily, the most in Australia.
Economy
The economy of Western Australia is based on the production and export
of minerals and agricultural products. Agriculture is limited
by the arid climate, and most development has taken place in the
southwest of the state (Swanland), which has the most favourable
climate for farming. The principal crops are wheat, barley, and
oats. Apples, soft fruits, and dried fruit are also grown. Wine
is an increasingly important product in Western Australia. There
are two main wine-growing areas in the state: the Swan Valley
and the Margaret River region, south of Perth. The state has 3,800
ha/9,400 acres of vines, producing 20,000 tonnes of grapes for
wine production; the state accounts of 2% to Australia's total
wine production, yet is has an estimated 20% of the Australian
market share. It is estimated that production will have doubled
by 2010. In the tropical north of the state grain sorghums, cotton,
sugar cane, chick peas, maize, sunflowers, melons, pumpkins, and
bananas are grown on land irrigated by the rivers Ord and Keep.
There are large cattle runs in the Kimberly region of Western
Australia, and cattle, lamb, and goat meat is exported. The state
produces 25% of Australia's fine merino wool.
There are also more than 125,000 ha /309,000 acres of soft and
hard wood plantations, and more hard wood plantations (to be used
for paper products) are planned. The soft wood plantations (about
72,000 ha/180,000 acres) are mostly state owned, and are used
to produce a variety of products including furniture, structural
grade timber, chipboard, and medium density fibre board.
Cultured and freshwater South Sea pearls are important: pearls
are found at Shark's Bay, north of Broome, and further north towards
Darwin. The aquaculture industry is increasingly important; it
includes crayfish, barramundi, marron, prawns, snapper, perch,
and trout.
Western Australia accounts for 4% of Australia's dairy industry,
45% of the dairy products of the state being consumed as milk,
15% being processed for export, and the rest being used in products
for local sale.
Manufacturing is concentrated in Perth and Kwinana, 29 km/18
mi south. Kwinana has shipyards, an alumina refinery, a nickel
refinery, and a number of smaller industries. Perth is the main
manufacturing centre and has a wide range of industries including
metalworking, food processing, electronics, and the manufacture
of household equipment, building materials, machinery, and wood
products. Other recent industries include the manufacture of electronic
equipment and pharmaceuticals.
Mining and Natural Resources
Western Australia has enormous mineral resources, and about 50 different
minerals are mined. The chief minerals produced in the state are
gold, iron ore, alumina, and nickel.
Western Australia produced 230 tonnes of gold in 1996-97, 75%
of the total Australian production. Gold is also mined at Kalgoorlie,
Telfer, Leanora, Southern Cross, and Bodington. The state produces
95% of the iron ore produced in Australia; reserves of high grade
iron ore are found in the Homersley Ranges in the Pilbara District,
in the northwest of the state. Western Australia produces 60%
of the alumina produced in Australia; it is mined in the Darling
Range. The state mined 99% of the total Australian nickel production
in 1996; there are nickel mines at Kambalda near Kalgoorlie-Boulder,
545 km/340 mi northeast of Perth), Leinster, Mount Keith, and
Forrestania, and there is a nickel smelter near Kalgoorlie.
All of the diamonds mined in Australia come from Western Australia,
and the state accounts for 40% of the world's diamonds (by weight).
The world's largest diamond mine is just south of Kununurra in
the Kimberley region in the far northeast of the state, near the
border with Northern Territory.
Mineral sands are found in the area which stretches from the
southern tip of Western Australia to Geraldton, and are located
either on the coastline or as deposits up to 35 km/ 22 mi inland.
The state produced 86 % of Australia's total salt production in
1996-97; it is produced in Port Hedland.
The state also has deposits of oil and natural gas. As well
as supplying domestic markets, Western Australia exports liquefied
natural gas to Japan, Korea, and Taiwan. Barrow Island has a commercial
oilfield and there is a natural gas field at Dongara, which supplies
Perth and the nearby industrial centre of Kwinana. The seabed
off the northwest coast near the Pilbara (Northwestern Shelf area)
has enormous deposits of oil and gas, which began to be exploited
in the early 1980s. The Northwest Shelf Natural Gas Project collects
gas from an offshore platform 135 km/84 mi northwest of Dampier,
and it is then piped 1,500 km/932 mi to Perth or liquefied and
exported to Japan. Western Australia is expected to be Australia's
largest oil-producing state by 2005.
Flora and Fauna
Certain trees, flowers, and animals are found only in
Western Australia. Trees unique to the area are the jarrah, karri,
marri, wandoo, tuart (rare), and tingle. Walpole-Nornalup National
Park, in the southwest, has four species of rare eucalyptus that
grow nowhere else (three kinds of tingle and the red flowering
gum). More than 8,000 wild flowers grow in the state, many of
them unique. The numbat and honey possum are mammals that have
been recorded only in Western Australia. Quokkas (small wallabies
found only on Rottnest Island) and black swans are also found.
At Monkey Mia, 800 km /500 mi north of Perth, dolphins swim to
shore.
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