The Kimberley is an area of 423,517 square kilometres (163,521 sq mi), which is about three times the size of England or twice the size of Victoria.
It is located in the northern part of Western Australia, bordered on the west by the Indian Ocean, on the north by the Timor Sea, on the south by the Great Sandy and Tanami Deserts, and on the east by the Northern Territory.
Desert Savanna Grass
The Kimberley was one of the earliest settled parts of Australia, with the first arrivals landing about 40,000 years ago from the islands of what is now Indonesia.
Bungle Bungles
The region was named after the Kimberley diamond fields in South Africa. This was due to the two areas sharing a similar landscape. The discovery of diamond fields in the Kimberley region has added to the likeness of the two. One third of the world's annual production of diamonds is mined at the Argyle and the Ellendale diamond mines.
Diamonds are girls best friend!
The Kimberley is one of the hottest parts of Australia, with the average annual temperature around 27 °C (81 °F), and maximum temperatures almost always above 30 °C (86 °F) even in July and ranging in November before the rains break from 37 °C (99 °F) on the coast to 40 °C (104 °F) in the south around Halls Creek.
Since 1967 increases of as much as 250 millimetres (10 in) per year in annual rainfall over the whole region.
Recent studies suggest Asian pollution and not global warming as the cause of increased rainfall in the area.
Kimberly Boab Tree Jail, Gibb river road
Much of the Kimberley is chiefly covered in open savanna woodland dominated by low bloodwood and boab trees with Darwin stringybark and Darwin woollybutt eucalypts in the wetter areas. The red sandy soil of the Dampier Peninsula in the south is known for its characteristic pindan wooded grassland while in the more fertile areas like the Ord valley the trees are grasslands in the wetter valleys.
The banks of the Ord, Fitzroy and other rivers are home to a greater variety of vegetation while in sheltered gorges of the high rainfall north there are patches of tropical dry broadleaf forest, called monsoon forests, deciduous vine forest or vine thicket in Australia (often mistakenly called 'dry rainforest'), which were unknown to science until 1965 and are one of the most floristically rich parts of Australia outside the Wet Tropics and southwestern WA. There are also areas of mangrove in river estuaries where the coast is flatter.
Animals found here include the huge saltwater crocodile and a rich variety of birds such as the Channel-billed Cuckoo, Pacific Koel, and Purple-crowned Fairywren. Mammals found in the flatlands include the bilby, Northern Quoll, Pale Field Rat, Golden-Backed Tree Rat, and Golden Bandicoot.
Our endangered Quoll
The gorges of central Kimberley are known for their fossils and for their large colonies of bats.
Eighty-mile Beach and Roebuck Bay, which has been described as "one of the most important stop-over areas for shorebirds in Australia and globally".
Eighty-mile Beach and Roebuck Bay, which has been described as "one of the most important stop-over areas for shorebirds in Australia and globally".
The town of Broome has a flourishing pearling industry which operates around the Kimberley coast.
Ancient Aboriginal Rock Art
Some of Australia's most prominent indigenous artists and art centres are found in or adjacent to the Kimberley region.
