Darwin

Darwin stands on the country of the Larrakia people, whose lands take in the harbour and the coast around it. Makassan and European ships had passed along the coast for a long time before John Clements Wickham of HMS Beagle named the harbour Port Darwin in 1839, after the naturalist Charles Darwin, who had sailed with the ship on an earlier voyage. A permanent settlement followed in 1869, when the South Australian surveyor George Goyder laid out a town called Palmerston on the headland above the water.

Two things made it grow. The Overland Telegraph line, completed in 1872, joined the town by undersea cable to Java and so to London; and gold found inland at Pine Creek in the 1880s drew large numbers of Chinese labourers, contracted to work the goldfields and later to build the railway towards Pine Creek, who established the town's Chinatown. Pearling, cattle and the railway south followed. The Commonwealth took over the Territory in 1911 and the town was renamed Darwin.

On 19 February 1942 Japanese aircraft attacked the harbour and the airfields in the largest attack ever mounted by a foreign power on Australia, sinking ships in the harbour and killing about 250 people by the estimate of the commission that investigated it, with later counts higher. All but about 2,000 civilians had already left, dozens of further raids followed over the next two years, and the town became a military base.

Darwin was rebuilt after the war, and then destroyed again. Cyclone Tracy crossed the city in the early hours of 25 December 1974, killing about 66 people and leaving most houses uninhabitable; tens of thousands of residents were flown south, and many never returned. The city was rebuilt to far stricter cyclone standards, and has grown steadily since the Territory gained self-government in 1978.

Darwin is one of the most mixed cities in Australia. The Larrakia are the traditional owners, and Aboriginal people from across the Top End, Arnhem Land and the Tiwi Islands come to the city for work, sport, medical care and family; art centres in those regions sell through Darwin galleries, and Australia's longest-running award for Indigenous artists is held at the museum each year. Chinese families have been here since the goldfields of the 1870s, and a Chinese temple founded in 1887 still stands in the centre. Greek, Filipino, Indonesian, Timorese, Thai, Vietnamese and Indian communities each hold their own celebrations, among them the Greek Glenti and India@Mindil.

Life is lived outdoors and informally. Shorts and sandals are ordinary dress almost everywhere, work starts early to beat the heat, and the dry season fills the calendar with markets, open-air films, football and the Darwin Festival in August. Residents describe the year in two halves and talk about the build-up, the sticky, stormy weeks before the monsoon that are said to fray tempers. Australian rules football is the main sport, and the Territory league plays through the wet season rather than the southern winter, with Tiwi Islands teams closely followed.

The city looks north as much as south. It is nearer to Dili and to Bali than to Sydney, trades and studies across the Timor Sea, and hosts a rotation of up to 2,500 United States Marines for six months of each year. The Beer Can Regatta at Mindil Beach, raced in boats built from empty cans, catches the local sense of humour.

About 140,000 people live in Greater Darwin, including the satellite city of Palmerston and the rural blocks around Humpty Doo, which makes it the smallest and the most northerly of the Australian capitals. The population is young, and it turns over quickly: defence postings, public service contracts and mining and construction work bring people for a few years and take them away again.

Most residents live in the northern suburbs between Nightcliff and Casuarina, in Palmerston, or on large blocks in the rural area, while the older suburbs of Parap, Fannie Bay and Stuart Park sit closest to the centre. Houses are built high, louvred and to cyclone standards, and households expect to check their emergency supplies at the start of the wet season.

The economy rests on the port and the gas industry on the harbour, on defence — the air force base shares the airport runway, with army barracks at Larrakeyah and near Palmerston — and on government administration, tourism, construction and services for remote communities. Charles Darwin University is based in the city, which is also the supply and transport base for the whole Territory.

Heat sets the rhythm of the day. Markets, sport and exercise happen early or at dusk and afternoons belong to air conditioning. Living costs are high, housing and rental shortages are a constant political subject, and so are homelessness, alcohol restrictions and the gap in health and housing between Aboriginal and other Territorians.

Darwin eats from the sea and from Asia. Barramundi, a large native fish, is the standard local catch, grilled or battered; mud crab, often cooked with chilli, and banana prawns come from the same waters; crocodile and water buffalo appear on menus more as curiosities than staples.

The city's own dish is laksa, the South-East Asian noodle broth brought by migrant families and now the city's favourite meal, queued for at the Parap and Rapid Creek markets on market mornings. Satay, Filipino barbecue, Thai green papaya salad, Indonesian and Timorese dishes and Greek sweets share the stalls at the Mindil Beach Sunset Market, which sets up behind the sand through the dry season.

Mangoes grown on Top End farms reach the city before the build-up, and mango smoothies and ice cream mark the season. Rambutan, jackfruit, dragon fruit and papaya are grown on rural blocks and reach the markets in the wet. Native bush foods, above all the Kakadu plum, a small green fruit very high in vitamin C, are harvested by Aboriginal enterprises and turned into jams, sauces and drinks.

Barramundi and chips eaten at an outdoor table on Stokes Hill Wharf as the sun drops is a standing local habit, with a cold beer afterwards; the Darwin Stubby, a 2.25-litre bottle, survives mainly as a souvenir. Coffee shops have taken hold in Parap and Nightcliff, and the Waterfront and Cullen Bay hold the more expensive restaurants.