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Region of Western Australia
Photo: Copyright Fredrik Bülow. (Western Australia), CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
The Pilbara is one of the nine administrative regions of Western Australia, with a population of almost 62,000 in 2018. These people are concentrated in a handful of mining towns and ports, leaving the region's 505,000 sq km (195,000 sq mi) very thinly populated. The name may derive from bilybara, meaning "dry", which the Pilbara certainly is except when scourged by cyclone rains. It's in the north of the state, bounded by the Indian Ocean northwest, Kimberley region north, Northern Territory east and by the Goldfields, Mid West and Gascoyne regions to the south. The name of the region is pronounce "PILL-buh-ra", with the first syllable stressed and the second syllable shortened.
The economy of the Pilbara depends on FIFO workers, who fly-in, fly-out for shifts of a couple of weeks duration.
Read in the guideSee above for regional flights by Aviair, and routes along the NW Coastal and Great Northern Highways.
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Port Hedland · International · PHE
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Karijini National Park is in the Pilbara region of Western Australia. It's a long way from anywhere, but worth the journey for its spectacular deep red canyons, gorges, and bushwalks.
Murujuga National Park is a national park in the Pilbara region of Western Australia. It's home to more than one million images on rock, making it the largest collection of Aboriginal rock art in Australia as well as the world's densest – some of them dating back 47,000 years.
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