ABSTRACT
Western Australia (WA),1 the western third of the oldest, flattest and driest continent, resource-rich and remote, covers an area equal to all of Europe and has a population of two million people. More than three quarters of these live in Perth, a city – founded in 1829 on the Swan River – that has grown in a linear sprawl up and down the coast, stretching sixty kilometres. The city is as close to Jakarta and Singapore to the north as it is to Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane to the East.
