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Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia. With a population of 1,650,000 (2009), Perth ranks fourth amongst the nation’s cities, with a growth rate consistently above the national average.

Perth was founded on 12 June 1829 by Captain James Stirling as the political centre of the free-settler Swan River Colony. It has continued to serve as the seat of government for Western Australia to the present day. Its port, Fremantle is a city in its own right and slightly older than Perth.

The metropolitan area is located in the south-west of the continent between the Indian Ocean and a low coastal escarpment known as the Darling Range. The central business district and suburbs of Perth are situated on the Swan River. Perth is tied for fifth place inThe Economist’s 2009 list of the World’s Most Livable Cities.

Perth became known worldwide as the "City of Lights" as city residents lit their house lights and streetlights as American astronaut John Glenn passed overhead while orbiting the earth on Friendship 7 in 1962. The city repeated its feat as Glenn passed overhead on theSpace Shuttle in 1998.

Prehistory

Before European settlement, the area had been inhabited by the Whadjuk Noongar people for over 40,000 years, as evidenced by archaeological findings on the Upper Swan River.These Aborigines occupied the southwest corner of Western Australia, living as hunter-gatherers. The lakes on the coastal plain were particularly important to them, providing both spiritual and physical sustenance.

Rottnest, Carnac and Garden Islands were also important to the Noongar. About 5,000 years ago the sea levels were low enough that they could walk to the limestone outcrops.

The area where Perth now stands was called Boorloo by the Aboriginals living there at the time of their first contact with Europeans in 1827. Boorloo formed part of Mooro, the tribal lands of the Yellagonga, one of several groups based around the Swan River and known collectively as the Whadjuk. The Whadjuk were part of a larger group of thirteen or more tribes which formed the south west socio-linguistic block known as the Noongar (The People), also sometimes called the Bibbulmun.

On 19 September 2006, the Federal Court of Australia brought down a judgment recognising Noongar native title over the Perth metropolitan area, in the case of Bennell v State of  Western Australia [2006] FCA 1243. The judgement was overturned on appeal.

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