Albany

King George Sound is the country of the Menang people, a Noongar group, who knew the place as Kinjarling, said to mean place of plenty and place of rain. Menang groups lived here in the summer season, and early British explorers recorded fish traps at Emu Point and on the Kalgan River. Europeans began visiting after George Vancouver named the sound in 1791, and Matthew Flinders anchored there in 1801. Vancouver sought good relations with the Menang, and relations with early explorers were for a time good.

In December 1826 Major Edmund Lockyer arrived on the brig Amity with soldiers and convicts and founded a military outpost of New South Wales, partly to forestall French interest in the coast. The settlement, first called Frederick Town, was transferred to the Swan River Colony in 1831 and renamed Albany soon afterwards, which makes it the oldest European town in Western Australia. For many years it had the colony's only deep-water port and was the first port of call for mail from England, until the Fremantle Inner Harbour opened in 1897.

In late 1914 the first convoy of the Australian Imperial Force and the New Zealand Expeditionary Force assembled in King George Sound and sailed for Egypt, many of its men later landing at Gallipoli. Whaling also shaped the city: whalers worked these waters in the nineteenth century, and the Cheynes Beach whaling station operated from 1952 until 1978, when it was the last land-based whaling station in the southern hemisphere. Since then Albany has grown as a regional centre for farming, timber plantations, education and tourism.

The Anzac story sits at the heart of Albany's identity. The National Anzac Centre and the memorials on Mount Clarence draw visitors and descendants, and Anzac Day brings a dawn service and large crowds; the city claims one of the earliest dawn services, led by the chaplain Arthur White on Mount Clarence. The centenary commemorations of the first convoy in 2014, opened by the prime ministers of Australia and New Zealand, drew about 40,000 people.

Menang Noongar culture is present in place names: since 2020 the city has given prominence to Kinjarling as its Aboriginal name, and places such as Binalup / Middleton Beach carry dual names. The colonial past survives in nineteenth-century churches, cottages and the stone buildings of Stirling Terrace, which give the centre an old-port character.

Albany is also an outdoor and arts town. Surfing, fishing, sailing and walking on the Bibbulmun Track, which ends in the city, are part of local life, and the change from whaling to whale watching is often cited as a symbol of how attitudes have shifted. The Albany Entertainment Centre hosts touring theatre and music, and the Vancouver Arts Centre occupies the old Cottage Hospital. The surrounding region is known for its artisans, wineries and growers, whose produce shapes the city's food scene.

Albany's urban area has about 35,000 people, at the 2021 census, making it the state's sixth-largest population centre and the service centre for the Great Southern. Its main industries are tourism, fishing, timber woodchips and agriculture, alongside health care, education, public administration, retail and tourism. A university campus and a TAFE campus serve students from across the region.

Neighbourhoods range from the older streets around the centre and on the slopes of Mount Clarence to newer suburbs spreading north and east towards Oyster Harbour and Lower King, and the beachside streets of Middleton Beach and Emu Point. Some suburbs are home mainly to older residents: Emu Point's median age at the 2021 census was 71.

Daily rhythms are those of a country city: early starts, busy weekday mornings on York Street, weekend sport, markets and fishing. Local issues include the supply of housing and rentals, the ageing population, the health of the timber and agricultural export trades, the protection of coastal bushland, and the hazards of winter storms and summer bushfires in the surrounding countryside.

Albany's food draws on both the sea and the farms of the Great Southern. Local fish and seafood include sardines, called pilchards locally, which make up most of the fish catch in the sound and its harbours, along with King George whiting, a prized delicate white fish of southern Australian waters, and other species caught in the sound. Shellfish also appear on local menus.

The farmland around the city produces lamb, beef, dairy and vegetables, and the region's growers bring them to the farmers market in the city centre. The Great Southern is Australia's largest wine region, with vineyards around Mount Barker, Frankland River, the Porongurups and Denmark; it is known for riesling, shiraz and cabernet sauvignon, grown in a cooler climate than Margaret River. Many cellar doors are within an hour's drive.

In town, the cafés and pubs of Stirling Terrace and York Street serve breakfasts, pies and pub meals alongside dishes built on local seafood and produce. The Middleton Beach foreshore has casual cafés for coffee and fish and chips by the water. Self-catering is easy, with large supermarkets and fresh produce from the market and the farm gates of the region.