What is the Pilbara region?

The Pilbara is a mineral-rich region in northern Western Australia, covering about 507,000 square kilometres of arid country between the Kimberley to the north and the Gascoyne to the south, with a population of around 60,000. It is the heart of Australia's iron-ore industry and one of the most important mining regions in the world.

The Pilbara contains the Hamersley Range, which stretches 460 kilometres and includes Mount Meharry (1,253 metres), the highest point in Western Australia. The region's red ranges are some of the oldest rock formations on Earth, including iron-rich banded ironstone formations laid down between 2.4 and 3.8 billion years ago. Karijini National Park protects spectacular gorges, swimming holes, and wildflower country in the heart of the Hamersley.

Iron ore mining dominates the economy. BHP, Rio Tinto, and Fortescue Metals Group operate dozens of open-cut mines, employing tens of thousands of workers, many on fly-in fly-out rosters between Perth and Pilbara towns such as Tom Price, Newman, Paraburdoo, and Marble Bar. The ore is railed to Port Hedland, Dampier, and Cape Lambert and shipped to East Asian steel mills, generating about half of Australia's total goods exports by value in recent years. The region also produces gold, lithium, manganese, and natural gas, with the North West Shelf liquefied natural gas project at Karratha among the largest in the world.

The Pilbara is the traditional country of more than 30 Aboriginal nations including the Yindjibarndi, Banjima, Nyiyaparli, Karajarri, and Kuruma-Marthudunera peoples. Murujuga (Burrup Peninsula) holds about a million petroglyphs, the largest concentration of rock art in the world, currently the subject of a World Heritage nomination. The 2020 destruction of 46,000-year-old rock shelters at Juukan Gorge by Rio Tinto led to national reform of Aboriginal heritage protection laws.