a state in the western part of the Commonwealth of Australia. Area, 2,527,600 sq km. Population, 1,144,400 (1969). Administrative center, Perth.
Most of the surface consists of a plateau 400-500 m in elevation, a considerable part of which is occupied by deserts (the Gibson, Great Sandy, and Great Victoria deserts) with scrub growth and numerous salt lakes; the north is a savanna. In the west and northwest there are mountain ranges and massifs with elevations of up to 1,226 m (the Hamersley Range).
The principal branch of the economy is sheep raising for wool. In 1969, Western Australia had 33.4 million head of sheep (18 percent of the country’s total) which yielded 136,300 tons of shorn wool (17 percent of the shorn wool in Australia for 1967-68), and 1.6 million head of cattle. Some 3.6 million hectares of land are under cultivation, primarily in the southwestern region. The principal agricultural crops are wheat, barley, and oats. Vineyards, orchards, and gardens have been developed in the southwest. In the northwestern part of the state, in the Ord River valley, there is a new region of irrigated agriculture (cotton, rice, and sugarcane); the Ord Diversion Weir was built near Kununurra (capacity, 98.6 billion cu m). Near the port of Derby a hydroelectric power plant is under construction (1972) with a capacity of 150,000-200,000 kilowatts; it will utilize the energy of the tides.
The most developed branch of industry is mining. There is large-scale mining of gold (Kalgoorlie, Wiluna) and especially iron ore (the Pilbara deposits, as well as those on Cockatoo Island and Koolan Island in Yampi Sound). American and Japanese capital played an important role in the development of iron-ore mining. The ore is processed at metallurgical plants in the southeastern area, but most of it is exported to Japan. Nickel (at Kambalda) and bauxite (in the Darling Range) are mined. Petroleum is extracted on Barrow Island, and brown coal and anthracite are mined near the city of Collie.
The processing industry, which began to develop rapidly during World War II and especially in the postwar period, is represented by ferrous and nonferrous metallurgy; machine building; petroleum refining; chemical, food, and wood processing; and sawmilling.
Western Australia’s principal industrial centers are Perth, Fremantle, Kwinana, and Kalgoorlie. The chief seaport is Fremantle-Kwinana.
V. M. ANDREEVA