7 
GENERAL. 
POLITICAL AND PHYSICAL. 
Position .—Western Australia includes all that portion of the Australian 
Continent situated to the westward of the 129° East Longitude, including all the 
islands adjacent in the Indian and Southern Oceans. 
Area . — The greatest length of this territory, from Cape Londonderry, in tlie 
North, to Peak Head. (South of King George’s Sound), in the South, is 1,450 
miles ; and its breadth from Steep Point, at the South of Dirk Hartog’s Island, on 
the West, to the 129th Meridian on the East, about 850 miles. It contains an 
estimated area of 976,000 square miles, being about nine times the size of the United 
Kingdom, or equal in size to all the following European States joined together:- — 
Austro-Hungary, Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Spain, 
Turkey, and Roumania. Thus it is the largest of the Australian Colonies, occupy¬ 
ing about one-third of the whole continent. 
Western Australia was originally .known as the “Swan River Settlement;” 
this name, however, only applied to the South-West corner of the Colony. The 
settlements of the Colony lie in patches along the coast between Albany 
(King George’s Sound), in the South, and Wyndliam (East Kimberley), in the 
North, being scattered over an area of about 1,200 miles in length, from North to 
South, by about 150 miles in average breadth. Inland settlement is, however, 
being rapidly extended. 
The Colony was first permanently settled on June 1st, 1829. 
Population .—The total population of Western Australia (exclusive of abori¬ 
gines) appears at the taking of the Census upon April 5tli, 1891, to have been 
49,782 persons, composed of 29,807 males, and 19,975 females, of which 918 were 
Chinese. It is now, however, estimated at something over 65,000. 
Constitutional. 
On the 21st October of the year 1890, Sir W. C. F. Robinson, G.C.M.G., 
arrived in the Colony, and proclaimed the new Constitution on the 22nd. The 
Constitution thus secured provides a Parliament composed of two Houses, 
described respectively as the Legislative Council and Legislative Assembly, both 
of which are elected by the people. 
Principal Towns. 
Albany is situated on the North side of Princess, Royal Harbour, off King 
George’s Sound, about 254 miles by road and 352 miles by rail from Perth. It 
has the finest harbour in the Southern portion of the Colony, and is, therefore, 
made use of as a port of call by the mail steamers from Europe. 
The town is growing rapidly since tlie opening of the Great Southern Rail¬ 
way. It is fortified with the idea of making it an Imperial naval coaling depot. 
Beverley is a small township on the Avon River at tlie junction of the Eastern 
Railway and the Great Southern Railway, being 110 miles from Perth. It is the 
centre of an agricultural district, but has received a great impetus from tlie 
railway passengers, as ail trains (with the exception of the mail, which runs once 
a week) stop the night here. 
