Portal:Perth

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Perth (/ˈpɜːrθ/) is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia. It is the fourth-most populous city in Australia, with an estimated population of 2.04 million (as of 30 June 2015^[update]) living in Greater Perth. The city is part of the South West Land Division of Western Australia, with the majority of the metropolitan area of Perth located on the Swan Coastal Plain, a narrow strip between the Indian Ocean and the Darling Scarp, a low coastal escarpment. The first areas settled were on the Swan River, with the city's central business district and port (Fremantle) both located on its shores.

The Perth Metropolitan Region includes 30 local government areas, which themselves consist of a large number of suburbs, extending from Two Rocks in the north to Rockingham in the south, and east inland to The Lakes.

Perth was originally founded by Captain James Stirling in 1829 as the administrative centre of the Swan River Colony. It gained city status (currently vested in the smaller City of Perth) in 1856, and was promoted to the status of a Lord Mayorality in 1929. The city is named after Perth, Scotland, due to the influence of Sir George Murray, Member of Parliament for Perthshire and Secretary of State for War and the Colonies.

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Fremantle Prison is a former Australian prison located in The Terrace, Fremantle, in Western Australia. The 60,000 m² site includes the prison, gatehouse, perimeter walls, cottages, tunnels, and prisoner art. The prison was built by convict labour in the 1850s, and transferred to the colonial government in 1886 for use as a gaol for locally-sentenced prisoners. During World War I and World War II, the Australian Army took over part of the prison and used it as a military prison. The gallows room was the only legal place of execution in Western Australia between 1888 and 1984, with 43 men and one woman hanged in this period. It closed as a prison in 1991 and reopened as a historic site and is now a public museum, managed by the Government of Western Australia. One of the notable features of the history is the preservation of art and graffiti on the walls in some cells.

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Yagan (c. 1795–11 July 1833) was a Noongar warrior who played a key part in early indigenous Australian resistance to European settlement and rule in the area of Perth, Western Australia. After he led a series of attacks in which white settlers were killed, a bounty was offered for his capture dead or alive, and he was shot dead by a young settler. Yagan's death has passed into Western Australian folklore as a symbol of the unjust and sometimes brutal treatment of the indigenous peoples of Australia by colonial settlers. Yagan's head was removed and brought to London, where it was exhibited as an "anthropological curiosity". It spent over a century in storage at a museum before being buried in an unmarked grave in 1964. In 1993 its location was identified, and four years later it was exhumed and repatriated to Australia. Since then, the issue of its proper reburial has become a source of great controversy and conflict amongst the indigenous people of the Perth area. To date, the head remains unburied.

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Credit: Michal Lewi

A view of the interior of St George's Cathedral, Perth, facing east towards the chancel.

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Did you know?

... that Government House in Perth is the official residence of the Governor of Western Australia and was built between 1859 and 1864 largely with convict labour?
... that according to Noongar culture, the Wagyl is a snake-like Dreamtime creature responsible for the creation of the Swan and Canning Rivers and other waterways around present-day Perth and the southwest of Western Australia?
... that in 1982, 68 kg of gold bars were stolen in a robbery that became known as the Perth Mint Swindle, and that seven years later 55 kg of the gold was found dumped outside a Perth television station?
... that East Perth Cemeteries' first recorded burial was of Private John Mitchell from the 63rd regiment who died on 6 January 1830?