Western Australia (WA), Australia's largest state, occupies the western third of the island continent's entire area. The great majority (92%) of its inhabitants live in the southwest corner, leaving the remainder of this vast state sparsely populated. The southwest enjoys a Mediterranean climate, with mild, wet winters and hot summers. The central two-thirds of the state is arid and sparsely inhabited. The only settlements in this part of Western Australia are clustered around mines. The far north has a hot monsoonal climate with a very long rainless season.

Western Australia lies in a shield, a geologically stable region, so there are no towering mountain ranges. The land consists of ancient rocks, greatly eroded over many millions of years. Most of the state is a low plateau, descending—in some places, along a steep escarpment—to the coastal plains. Stretching away to the east are deserts, including the Great Sandy Desert and its high sand dunes, reaching up to 9 metres (30 feet) in height. The "lakes" are playas, dried up lake beds.

To the southwest of the Great Sandy Desert lies the Pilbara region, a rugged, arid landscape of red earth and ancient rocks where some of the world’s oldest fossil stromatolites (about 3.5 billion years old) can be found. The region includes the gorges of the Hamersley Range. Its rivers, usually dry, sometimes become raging torrents during the cyclone season.

Economy

Western Australia's economy is largely driven by mining and processing of a range of minerals and petroleum products. The state's major exports include iron ore (mined mainly in the Pilbara region) petroleum, gold, alumina (processed from bauxite), nickel, copper, lithium and wheat. Australia's largest oil refinery, along with alumina and nickel processing plants, engineering works and port facilities for grain and other bulk exports, are located in the Kwinana industrial area to the south of Perth. Tourism also forms a major part of the Western Australian economy.

Inland from Perth lies the Wheatbelt, an area of both cereal cultivation and sheep farming. The region's massive farms span thousands of hectares. Wine is produced mainly in the Margaret River and Great Southern regions south of Perth, and in the Swan Valley.

The Noongar, an Aboriginal Australian people, have inhabited the Perth area—known to them as Boorloo—for at least 38,000 years. Dutch explorer Willem de Vlamingh made the first sighting of the region by a European in 1697. He and others after him decided the area was too inhospitable, so it was not until 1826 that the British decided to found a settlement nearby (in what is now Albany)—but only because they feared the French would colonize the area before they did.
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In 1829 another colony was established on the banks of the Swan River. It was founded by Captain James Stirling in 1829 as the administrative centre of the Swan River Colony and named after Perth, Scotland, in honour of Stirling's patron Sir George Murray, who was born there (and after whom the Murray River is named). As the colony grew, so hostile encounters between the British settlers and the Noongar people mulitiplied, culminating in the Pinjarra massacre in 1834, in which scores of Noongar people lost their lives.

Gaining city status in 1856, Perth's population increased substantially as a result of the gold rushes in the late 19th century. The mining boom of the late 20th and early 21st centuries has seen Perth become the regional headquarters for large mining operations.
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Facts about Western Australia

Nickname The Wildflower State

Area 2,527,013 sq km (975,685 sq miles) Rank 1st

Highest point Mount Meharry 1249 m (4098 ft)

Population 2,661,936 Rank 4th

Capital Perth pop. 2,043,138 (metropolitan area, including Mandurah)

Other major towns Bunbury (pop. 73,989) Geraldton (37,961), Albany (33,998), Kalgoorlie-Boulder (30,420)

State mammal Numbat

State bird Black swan

State fish Whale shark

State flower Red-and-green (or Mangles) kangaroo paw