Hughes is an outer rural locality of Darwin, located approximately south-west of the city in the

Litchfield Municipality The Litchfield Council is a local government area of the Northern Territory of Australia on the eastern and southeastern outskirts of the Darwin-Palmerston urban area. The municipality covers an area of , and was created by the Northern Territ ...

. The name of the locality derived from

Hughes Airfield Hughes Airfield (32 Mile) is an airfield in the Northern Territory of Australia located in the locality of Hughes. It was constructed during World War II for military use. The airfield now functions as a base for aerial firefighting aircraft t ...

constructed in the area during the

Second World War 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 ...

. The airfield itself was named after W A Hughes, Director of Mines in the Northern Territory before the war. The airfield is still in occasional use, occupying much of the western half of the locality adjacent to the

Stuart Highway Stuart Highway is a major Australia, Australian highway. It runs from Darwin, Northern Territory, Darwin, in the Northern Territory, via Tennant Creek and Alice Springs, to Port Augusta in South Australia; a distance of . Its northern and sou ...

. The eastern portion of Hughes, north of Townend Road is characterised by mostly small farms and

rural residential A hobby farm (also called a lifestyle block in New Zealand, or acreage living or rural residential in Australia) is a smallholding or small farm that is maintained without expectation of being a primary source of income. Some are held merely to ...

development. In 2021, Hughes Airfield received a

Federal government A federation (also known as a federal state) is a political entity characterized by a union of partially self-governing provinces, states, or other regions under a central federal government (federalism). In a federation, the self-governin ...

grant of $600,000 to re-seal the runway, reflecting its role in support of

aerial firefighting Aerial may refer to: Music * ''Aerial'' (album), by Kate Bush * ''Aerials'' (song), from the album ''Toxicity'' by System of a Down Bands *Aerial (Canadian band) * Aerial (Scottish band) * Aerial (Swedish band) Performance art * Aerial sil ...

operations during the bushfire season.

References

{{Litchfield Municipality Suburbs and Towns Suburbs of Darwin, Northern Territory