Derby ( ) is a town in the

Kimberley region of Western Australia The Kimberley is the northernmost of the nine regions of Western Australia. It is 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 in the region of the Pilbara, an ...

. At the 2016 census, Derby had a population of 3,325 with 47.2% of

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Indigenous Australians or Australian First Nations are people with familial heritage from, and membership in, the ethnic groups that lived in Australia before British colonisation. They consist of two distinct groups: the Aboriginal peoples ...

descent. Along with Broome and Kununurra, it is one of only three towns in the Kimberley to have a population over 2,000. Located on

King Sound King Sound is a large gulf in northern Western Australia. It expands from the mouth of the Fitzroy River, one of Australia's largest watercourses, and opens to the Indian Ocean. It is about long, and averages about in width. The port town ...

, Derby has the highest

tide Tides are the rise and fall of sea levels caused by the combined effects of the gravity, gravitational forces exerted by the Moon (and to a much lesser extent, the Sun) and are also caused by the Earth and Moon orbiting one another. Tide t ...

s in Australia, with the differential between low and high tide reaching .Derby tides at derbytourism.com.au
. Retrieved 7 January 2007

History

Derby falls within Nyiginka country. The town was founded in 1883 and named after Edward Stanley, 15th Earl of Derby, the British secretary of state for the colonies. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, Derby was bombed by Japanese planes because of an air base and jetty that was used by Australian forces. More recently, refugees were housed at Royal Australian Air Force Base Curtin, however the detention centre was closed in 2014. Derby was famous in the 1920s as the terminus of the first scheduled aviation service in Australia,

West Australian Airways West Australian Airways was an Australian airline based in Geraldton, Western Australia. Established on 5 December 1921 as Western Australian Airways by World War I pilot Norman Brearley, it was the first airline in Australia to establish a sch ...

Ltd. Their service began with their first flight on 5 December 1921, which crashed, near

Geraldton Geraldton ( Wajarri: ''Jambinu'', Wilunyu: ''Jambinbirri'') is a coastal city in the Mid West region of the Australian state of Western Australia, north of the state capital, Perth. At June 2018, Geraldton had an urban population of 37,648. ...

. At one time the Perth to Derby service was the world's longest passenger airline route. In 1968 the town had a population of approximately 1,500 people, many employed at the meatworks. A A$900,000

beef Beef is the culinary name for meat from cattle (''Bos taurus''). In prehistoric times, humankind hunted aurochs and later domesticated them. Since that time, numerous breeds of cattle have been bred specifically for the quality or quantit ...

road from

Glenroy Station Glenroy Station is a pastoral lease that operates as a cattle station in Western Australia. It is situated approximately north of Fitzroy Crossing and east of Derby in the Kimberley region. History The property was established in the earl ...

to Derby was completed the same year to assist with the development of beef processing. A A$2 million steel and concrete jetty was built in 1965 to provide adequate port facilities for the shipment of live cattle. The

West Kimberley Regional Prison West Kimberley Regional Prison is an Australian prison near Derby in the Kimberley region of north-western Western Australia Western Australia (commonly abbreviated as WA) is a state of Australia occupying the western percent of the land ...

, whose architecture won several awards, was opened in 2012.

Population

According to the 2016 census of population, there were 3,325 people in Derby. * Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people made up 47.2% of the population. * 77.4% of people were born in Australia. The next most common country of birth was New Zealand at 3.4%. * 72.5% of people spoke only English at home. Other languages spoken at home included Kriol at 6.2%. * The most common responses for religion were No Religion 27.7% and Catholic 26.8%.

Culture

Derby is rich in cultural diversity, with the local Aboriginal Australian culture playing a large part in the community. The Mowanjum Festival is held annually at

Mowanjum Community Mowanjum is a medium-sized Aboriginal community, located south east of Derby in the Kimberley region of Western Australia, within the Shire of Derby-West Kimberley. At the 2016 Australian census, Mowanjum had a population of 311. The settl ...

, located south east of Derby, and features a showcase of

traditional art Folk art covers all forms of visual art made in the context of folk culture. Definitions vary, but generally the objects have practical utility of some kind, rather than being exclusively decorative. The makers of folk art are typically tra ...

. The Boab Festival (named after the boab tree) is a fortnight-long festival that includes traditional events such as mud football, watermelon seed spitting, the Mardi Gras and other festivities. Historically, Derby has played a major role in the Australian

Royal Flying Doctor Service The Royal Flying Doctor Service (RFDS), commonly known as the Flying Doctor, is an air medical service in Australia. It is a non-profit organisation that provides emergency and primary health care services for those living in rural, remote an ...

for the Kimberley region. The Kimberley

School of the Air School of the Air is a generic term for correspondence schools catering for the primary and early secondary education of children in remote and outback Australia where some or all classes were historically conducted by radio, although this is n ...

is located in Derby. The school provides education to isolated Primary-aged children living on

cattle station In Australia and New Zealand, a cattle station is a large farm ( station is equivalent to the American ranch), the main activity of which is the rearing of cattle. The owner of a cattle station is called a '' grazier''. The largest cattle stat ...

s and in remote Aboriginal communities and outstations scattered throughout the Kimberley region. Derby has two schools located in the town, Holy Rosary School Derby and Derby District High School. Derby District High School follows

Chris Sarra Chris Sarra is an Australian educationalist, and the founder & Chairman of the Stronger Smarter Institute. Sarra grew up in Bundaberg, Queensland as the youngest of ten children to parents of Italian and Aboriginal heritage, and he experienced m ...

's vision of "Stronger Smarter", which aims to raise the expectations of the school as a community. Wharfinger's House Museum tells the story of the aviation history of the town as well as the history of the port. The Norval Gallery showcases the work of artist Mark Norval as well as a broad selection of Indigenous artwork from across the Kimberley.

Economy

There is employment in the pastoral and mining industries, as well as administration and tourism. There is oil at Blina,

diamond mining Diamond is a solid form of the element carbon with its atoms arranged in a crystal structure called diamond cubic. Another solid form of carbon known as graphite is the chemically stable form of carbon at room temperature and pressure, b ...

at Ellendale. Granite is quarried from the

Wunaamin-Miliwundi Ranges The Wunaamin Miliwundi Ranges (formerly between 1879 and 2020, the King Leopold Ranges) are a range of hills in the western Kimberley region of Western Australia. There are two conservation parks within the ranges, the Wunaamin Conservation P ...

and lead and

zinc Zinc is a chemical element with the symbol Zn and atomic number 30. Zinc is a slightly brittle metal at room temperature and has a shiny-greyish appearance when oxidation is removed. It is the first element in group 12 (IIB) of the periodi ...

from Cadjebut and an

iron ore Iron ores are rocks and minerals from which metallic iron can be economically extracted. The ores are usually rich in iron oxides and vary in color from dark grey, bright yellow, or deep purple to rusty red. The iron is usually found in the fo ...

mine at

Koolan Island Koolan Island is an island off the Kimberley coast of Western Australia in the Buccaneer Archipelago. It is about north of Perth, and about north of Derby. It hosts deposits of high-grade iron ore. Description The island is approximately i ...

. A major mineral sands mining project is being developed at Thunderbird, west of Derby. In 1997 the Derby wharf, which was closed in the 1980s, was re-opened for barging operations for the export of lead and zinc. Tourism bolsters the local economy between the months of May and September. The Derby

Leprosarium A leper colony, also known by many other names, is an isolated community for the quarantining and treatment of lepers, people suffering from leprosy. ''M. leprae'', the bacterium responsible for leprosy, is believed to have spread from East Afr ...

on the outskirts of the town was one of two in Western Australia that helped to contain an epidemic of

leprosy Leprosy, also known as Hansen's disease (HD), is a long-term infection by the bacteria ''Mycobacterium leprae'' or ''Mycobacterium lepromatosis''. Infection can lead to damage of the nerves, respiratory tract, skin, and eyes. This nerve damag ...

from the 1930s to the 1960s.

Notable people

*Vinka Barunga, who grew up in Mowanjum and Derby, graduated from the

University of Western Australia The University of Western Australia (UWA) is a public research university in the Australian state of Western Australia. The university's main campus is in Perth, the state capital, with a secondary campus in Albany, Western Australia, Albany an ...

with an MBBS in 2016, and is the first Worrora doctor and the first Aboriginal doctor in Derby. *Bebe Backhouse, a Melbourne-based Bardi Jawi author and creative industry specialist, grew up in Derby.

Climate

Derby has a hot

semi-arid climate A semi-arid climate, semi-desert climate, or steppe climate is a dry climate sub-type. It is located on regions that receive precipitation below potential evapotranspiration, but not as low as a desert climate. There are different kinds of semi-ar ...

(

Köppen Köppen is a German surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Bernd Köppen (born 1951), German pianist and composer * Carl Köppen (1833-1907), German military advisor in Meiji era Japan * Edlef Köppen (1893–1939), German author and ...

''BSh''), with a short, highly variable wet season lasting from late December to March. The wet season features hot, humid days and nights and erratic downpours. In some years there may be no wet season at all, as occurred in 1923–24 and in 1951–52, but in other years, such as 1999–2000, more than the average annual rainfall has fallen in a month. Derby can be affected by severe

tropical cyclone A tropical cyclone is a rapidly rotating storm system characterized by a low-pressure center, a closed low-level atmospheric circulation, strong winds, and a spiral arrangement of thunderstorms that produce heavy rain and squalls. Depend ...

s. The dry season lasts from April to November and features very little rain, warm to hot daytime temperatures, and mild to cool nights. Extremes of temperature range from on 17 November 1968 to on 21 July 1965, while the wettest month on record was January 1917, when of rain fell, including the wettest day, 7 January 1917, when was recorded.