Port Hedland, Western Australia, Australia

The BHP Billiton Iron Ore train arriving at Port Hedland
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Port Hedland is a seaport on the northwestern part of Western Australia. With a population of 14,000 people (2012 estimate), it is the biggest town in the Pilbara region. The port is also the highest tonnage port in Australia.

Until Port Hedland was established, the area was inhabited by the Kariyarra and Nyamal tribes of Aborigines who called it Marapikurrinya, meaning "place of good water". Although the coast was sighted by Europeans as early as the 18th century, it was Captain Peter Hedland who explored the area in detail when he arrived in 1863, with the purpose of establishing a port. He named the site Mangrove Harbour, reporting that it was a well-protected harbour with the availability of fresh water. However he omitted mentioning that access into the harbour was difficult due to a huge sandbar that block the entrance, making it accessible only at high tide.

The Port Hedland area remained largely undeveloped until the early 1960s, when large-scale mining got under way in Western Australia. Vast deposits of iron ore discovered in Newman, 426 km inland, was so important that a railway line was built just to extract the ore, bringing it to Port Hedland for shipment. In 1986 the harbour was also dredged so that bigger ships could enter.

Port Hedland existed because of the mining activities in towns such as Newman, Goldsworthy and Shay Gap. However it has developed a number of tourist attractions worth visiting.

Eighty Mile Beach, Western Australia
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Visiting Port Hedland

You can fly to Port Hedland (PHE) from Broome, Darwin, Karratha, Brisbane, Perth, Melbourne and even Denpasar.

Places of Interest in Port Hedland

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