What is the Kimberley?

The Kimberley is a remote region in far north Western Australia, covering about 423,000 square kilometres of tropical sandstone country between the Indian Ocean and the Northern Territory border. It has a population of about 35,000, mostly concentrated in Broome, Kununurra, Derby, and Halls Creek, with about half identifying as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander.

The landscape is dominated by ancient sandstone ranges, gorges, and a deeply indented coastline of mangrove estuaries and tidal flats. Iconic features include the Bungle Bungle Range in Purnululu National Park (a UNESCO World Heritage site since 2003), the King George Falls, the Mitchell Falls, the Horizontal Falls in Talbot Bay, and the Gibb River Road that crosses 660 kilometres of the central Kimberley. Cable Beach at Broome and the rocks of Cape Leveque are famous tourist sites.

The Kimberley climate is monsoon tropical, with a Wet from November to April that can deliver more than 1,500 millimetres of rain in a few months and a Dry from May to October. Tropical cyclones strike the coast regularly. The region is also notable for some of the largest tides in the southern hemisphere, with king tides exceeding 11 metres in places such as Derby and the source of the unique horizontal-waterfalls phenomenon at Talbot Bay.

The Kimberley is the traditional country of many Aboriginal nations including the Bardi-Jawi, Karajarri, Nyikina-Mangala, Bunuba, Gooniyandi, and Wunambal-Gaambera peoples. Bradshaw or Gwion Gwion rock art in the central Kimberley is among the oldest and most distinctive art in the world, dated to at least 17,000 years ago. The region's economy combines cattle stations on huge pastoral leases, pearling at Broome (founded as a pearling town in the 1880s), tourism, mining, and agriculture in the Ord River Irrigation Scheme around Kununurra.