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tersk svenska kiswahili தமிழ் ไทย tagalog lea faka tonga toki pona tok pisin türkçe українська اردو oʻzbekcha ўзбекча vèneto tiếng việt west vlams winaray 吴语 მარგალური 閩南語 bân lâm gí 粵語 中文 edit links article talk english read edit view history tools tools move to sidebar hide actions read edit view history general what links here related changes upload file permanent link page information cite this page get shortened url switch to legacy parser print export download as pdf printable version in other projects abstract wikipedia wikimedia commons wikinews wikivoyage wikidata item appearance move to sidebar hide coordinates 26 s 121 e 26 s 121 e 26 121 from wikipedia the free encyclopedia state of australia state in australia western australia state flag coat of arms nickname s the golden state the wildflower state the state of excitement qld nsw act wa nt sa vic tas location of western australia in australia 26 s 121 e 26 s 121 e 26 121 country australia before federation colony of western australia established as the swan river colony 2 may 1829 responsible government 21 october 1890 federation 1 january 1901 capital and largest city perth administration 139 local government areas demonym s western west australian west aussie sandgroper colloquial government federated parliamentary constitutional monarchy monarch charles iii governor chris dawson premier roger cook labor legislature parliament of western australia upper house legislative council lower house legislative assembly judiciary supreme court of western australia parliament of australia senate 12 senators of 76 house of representatives 16 seats of 150 area total 2 527 013 1 km 2 975 685 sq mi 1st highest elevation mount meharry 1 249 m 4 098 ft population december 2024 estimate 3 008 700 2 4th density 1 11 km 2 2 9 sq mi 7th gsp 2022 estimate total a 377 257b 3 4th per capita a 135 320 1st hdi 2023 0 973 4 very high 2nd time zone utc 08 00 awst utc 08 45 eucla cocklebiddy madura mundrabilla caiguna dst not observed postal abbreviation wa iso 3166 code au wa symbols bird black swan cygnus atratus fish whale shark rhincodon typus flower red and green kangaroo paw anigozanthos manglesii mammal numbat myrmecobius fasciatus colour s black and gold fossil gogo fish mcnamaraspis kaprios website wa gov au western australia commonly abbreviated as wa is the westernmost state of australia it is bounded by the indian ocean to the north and west the southern ocean to the south the northern territory to the north east and south australia to the south east 5 western australia is australia s largest state with a land area of 2 527 013 square kilometres 975 685 sq mi 6 and is also the second largest subdivision of any country on earth a the state has a diverse range of climates including tropical conditions in the kimberley deserts in the interior including the great sandy desert little sandy desert gibson desert and great victoria desert and a mediterranean climate on the south west and southern coastal areas as of june 2024 update the state has 2 965 million inhabitants 10 9 percent of the national total 7 over 90 percent of the state s population live in the south west corner and around 80 percent live in the state capital perth 8 leaving the remainder of the state sparsely populated the trans australian railway and the eyre highway traverse the nullarbor plain in the state s south east providing the principal connection between western australia and the population centres in the eastern states western australia s indigenous peoples have been present for tens of thousands of years dutch explorers visited western australia from the 17th century with dirk hartog s 1616 expedition the first europeans to make landfall the british claimed western australia in 1827 and established the swan river colony with perth as its capital in 1829 the western australian gold rushes of the late 19th century resulted in a significant population influx the colony was granted responsible government in 1890 the last of the australian colonies to become self governing and federated with the other colonies in 1901 9 the state s mining sector is a key driver of the state economy the late 20th century saw the development of the state s significant iron ore mining industry the world s largest as well as primarily offshore petroleum and natural gas resources gold mining retains a significant presence and many other mineral commodities are mined with perth being a major centre for associated services outside of mining primary industry is the other significant contributor to the state s economy including agriculture in the wheatbelt and temperate southern coastal regions pastoralism in marginal grassland areas forestry in the south west and fishing including pearling and historically whaling 10 11 history edit main article history of western australia see also french western australia the first human inhabitants of australia arrived from the north over 50 000 years ago and possibly as much as 70 000 years ago 12 5 over thousands of years they eventually spread across the whole landmass citation needed these indigenous australians were long established throughout western australia by the time european explorers began to arrive in the early 17th century map first drawn in 1618 by hessel gerritsz 12 years after europeans first encountered the australian mainland 13 showing the charted coast of australia chartings after 1618 for example by françois thijssen in 1627 were added to the engraved plate between 1628 and 1632 14 the first europeans to visit western australia were those of the dutch dirk hartog expedition who on 25 october 1616 landed at what is now known as cape inscription dirk hartog island for the rest of the 17th century other dutch and british navigators encountered the coast of what abel tasman named new holland in 1644 usually unintentionally as demonstrated by the many shipwrecks along the coast of ships that deviated from the brouwer route because of poor navigation and storms 15 by the late 18th century british and french sailors had begun to explore the western australian coast the baudin expedition of 1800 03 included the coast of western australia and resulted in the freycinet map of 1811 the first published map featuring the full outline of australia the name new holland remained in popular and semi official use until at least the mid 1850s that is it was in use for about 206 years in comparison to the name australia which to date has been in use for about 197 years 16 11 melchisédech thévenot s hollandia nova terre australe in his travel anthology french relations de divers voyages curieux published in 1664 17 and which seems to be a copy of archipelagus orientalis sive asiaticus by joan blaeu in the atlas of the great elector german atlas des großen kurfürsten from 1659 18 the latitude staff depicted by thévenot falls along the zaragoza antimeridian from the treaty of zaragoza of 1529 between castile and portugal and which complemented the tordesillas meridian from the treaty of tordesillas of 1494 the origins of the present state began with the establishment by edmund lockyer 19 of a convict supported settlement from new south wales at king george iii sound the settlement was formally annexed on 21 january 1827 by lockyer when he commanded the union jack be raised and a feu de joie fired by the troops the settlement was founded in response to british concerns about the possibility of a french colony being established on the coast of western australia 19 on 7 march 1831 it was transferred to the control of the swan river colony 20 and named albany in 1832 in 1829 the swan river colony was established on the swan river by captain james stirling by 1832 the british settler population of the colony had reached around 1 500 and the official name of the colony was changed to western australia on 6 february that year 21 22 the two separate townsites of the colony developed slowly into the port city of fremantle and the state s capital perth york was the first inland settlement in western australia situated 97 kilometres 60 mi east of perth and settled on 16 september 1831 york was the staging point for early explorers who discovered the rich gold reserves of kalgoorlie population growth was very slow until significant discoveries of gold were made in the 1890s around kalgoorlie john forrest was the first premier of western australia in 1887 a new constitution was drafted providing for the right of self governance of european australians and in 1890 the act granting self government to the colony was passed by the british parliament john forrest became the first premier of western australia in 1896 after discoveries of gold at coolgardie and kalgoorlie the western australian parliament authorised the raising of a loan to construct a pipeline to transport 23 megalitres 5 million imperial gallons of water per day to the burgeoning population on the goldfields the pipeline known as the goldfields water supply scheme was completed in 1903 c y o connor western australia s first engineer in chief designed and oversaw the construction of the pipeline it carries water 530 km 330 mi from perth to kalgoorlie and is attributed by historians as an important factor driving the state s population and economic growth 23 following a campaign led by forrest electors of the colony of western australia voted in favour of federation with the five other australian colonies resulting in western australia officially becoming a state on 1 january 1901 24 west australia edit west australia on a 1902 stamp west australia and its related demonym west australian are occasionally used including in the names of the main daily newspaper the west australian and the state based west australian football league but are rarely used in an official sense the terms westralia and westralian were regularly used in the 19th and 20th century 25 26 the terms are still found in the names of certain companies and buildings e g westralia house in perth the skyscraper westralia square on st georges terrace and westralia airports corporation which operates perth airport as well as in the names of several ships 27 28 geography edit main article geography of western australia western australia is bounded to the east nominally by longitude 129 e the meridian 129 degrees east of greenwich although the actual border with south australia and the northern territory as surveyed and marked or otherwise indicated on the ground deviates from 129 east and is not a single straight line 29 and bounded by the indian ocean to the west and north the international hydrographic organization iho designates the body of water south of the continent as part of the indian ocean in australia it is officially gazetted as the southern ocean b 30 31 the total length of the state s eastern border is 1 862 km 1 157 mi 32 there are 20 781 km 12 913 mi of coastline including 7 892 km 4 904 mi of island coastline 33 the total land area occupied by the state is 2 5 million km 2 970 thousand mi 2 34 geology edit the bulk of western australia consists of the extremely old yilgarn craton and pilbara craton which merged with the deccan plateau of india madagascar and the kaapvaal and zimbabwe cratons of southern africa in the archean eon to form ur one of the oldest supercontinents on earth 3 3 2 billion years ago in may 2017 evidence of the earliest known life on land may have been found in 3 48 billion year old geyserite and other related mineral deposits often found around hot springs and geysers uncovered in the pilbara craton 35 36 because the only mountain building since then has been of the stirling range with the rifting from antarctica the land is extremely eroded and ancient with no part of the state above 1 249 metres 4 098 ft ahd at mount meharry in the hamersley range of the pilbara region most of the state is a low plateau with an average elevation of about 400 metres 1 200 ft very low relief and no surface runoff this descends relatively sharply to the coastal plains in some cases forming a sharp escarpment as with the darling range darling scarp near perth western australian cities towns settlements and road network the extreme age of the landscape has meant that the soils are remarkably infertile and frequently laterised even soils derived from granitic bedrock contain an order of magnitude less available phosphorus and only half as much nitrogen as soils in comparable climates in other continents soils derived from extensive sandplains or ironstone are even less fertile nearly devoid of soluble phosphate and deficient in zinc copper molybdenum and sometimes potassium and calcium the infertility of most of the soils has required heavy application by farmers of fertilisers these have resulted in damage to invertebrate and bacterial populations citation needed the grazing and use of hoofed mammals and later heavy machinery through the years have resulted in compaction of soils and great damage to the fragile soils large scale land clearing for agriculture has damaged habitats for native flora and fauna as a result the south west region of the state has a higher concentration of rare threatened or endangered flora and fauna than many areas of australia making it one of the world s biodiversity hot spots large areas of the state s wheatbelt region have problems with dryland salinity and the loss of fresh water climate edit köppen climate types in western australia the southwest coastal area has a mediterranean climate it was originally heavily forested including large stands of karri one of the tallest trees in the world 37 this agricultural region is one of the nine most bio diverse terrestrial habitats with a higher proportion of endemic species than most other equivalent regions thanks to the offshore leeuwin current the area is one of the top six regions for marine biodiversity and contains the most southerly coral reefs in the world average annual rainfall varies from 300 millimetres 12 in at the edge of the wheatbelt region to 1 400 millimetres 55 in in the wettest areas near northcliffe but from november to march evaporation exceeds rainfall and it is generally very dry plants are adapted to this as well as the extreme poverty of all soils the central two thirds of the state is arid and sparsely inhabited the only significant economic activity is mining annual rainfall averages less than 300 millimetres 8 10 in most of which occurs in sporadic torrential falls related to cyclone events in summer 38 an exception to this is the northern tropical regions the kimberley has an extremely hot monsoonal climate with average annual rainfall ranging from 500 to 1 500 millimetres 20 60 in but there is a very long almost rainless season from april to november eighty five percent of the state s runoff occurs in the kimberley but because it occurs in violent floods and because of the insurmountable poverty of the generally shallow soils the only development has ...