Western Australia Geography & Climate

Western Australia covers 2.5 million square kilometres — about a third of Australia and larger than Western Europe — with 2.8 million people, nearly 80% of them in Perth.

The southwest is the green corner: Mediterranean climate, karri and jarrah forest, and a globally recognised biodiversity hotspot with thousands of endemic plant species.

North of it the coast runs dry through the Coral Coast, where Ningaloo Reef comes within a hundred metres of the shore — unusual for a major reef, and why swimming with whale sharks is practical here.

Inland lies the Pilbara, some of the oldest exposed rock on the planet at over three billion years, and the iron ore that underwrites the state's economy. The Kimberley in the far north is monsoon savannah, gorges and a tidal range among the largest anywhere.

The southwest has a Mediterranean climate: hot dry summers, mild wet winters. Perth summer afternoons are relieved by the Fremantle Doctor, a reliable sea breeze that arrives in the afternoon and drops the temperature sharply.

The interior is arid — very hot summers, cold clear nights, and rainfall too erratic to plan around.

The Kimberley and Pilbara are monsoon tropics with a wet from November to April: heat, humidity, cyclones and road closures. The dry, May to September, is the only practical travel window there.

Bushfire risk in the southwest runs December to April, and cyclone season in the north overlaps the wet.