Transient Population of Kununurra

Kununurra has always had a very transient population, as was shown in the 2006 Census, there were 5,619 inhabitants in the town area on census night, but these figures appear to exclude the outlying farming areas of Crossing Falls, Packsaddle Plains, Riverfarm Road, The Frank Wise Institute of Tropical Agriculture (formerly the Kimberley Research Station) and the various Aboriginal communities within a 50km radius. The town population consisted of 993 Indigenous Australians,  2185 Non Indigenous Australians, 569 Not stated, this total of 3747 being the core population that called the Kununurra town site their "usual place of residence."  The core population for the postal region 6743 which does include the areas mentioned above but only for people that call postal area code 6743, their "usual place of residence," totals 4,893.

Of this core population of 3747 in town, 2,774 were Australian Born, 10 were Torres Strait Islander, 14 were both Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander, 11 from Canada, none were from China, 4 from Egypt, 5 from Fiji, 3 from the former Republic of Yugoslavia, 24 from Germany, 6 from India, 3 from Indonesia, 3 from Italy, 5 from Japan, 5 from Korea, 8 from Malaysia, 20 from the Netherlands, 71 from New Zealand, 7 from Papua New Guinea, 11 from the Philippines, 26 from South Africa, 4 from South Eastern Europe, 4 from Thailand, 112 from the United Kingdom, 10 from the USA, 39 were born "elsewhere" and 589 did not state their country of birth.

People on census night 2006 who did not call the Kununurra town area their "usual place of residence," were 75 people from the same Statistical Local Area, 316 from New South Wales, 366 from Victoria, 254 from Queensland, 164 from South Australia, 710 from Western Australia, 32 from Tasmania, 44 from the Northern Territory, 15 from the Australian Capital Territory, being a total of 1,976 Australian "visitors," as well as 213 overseas visitors. Adding these numbers to the core population gives a total number of 5,936 people surveyed in the town area alone.

If the outlying farm areas and communities were included in these population figures, numbers would exceed 7000 for 2006, and with an influx in the dry season (From April to September), of tourists, itinerants and backpacker farm workers pushing up the population by about 3,000 transient residents, to give a dry season total of around 10,000 on any one day in the dry. The core population would have increased in size since the 2006 statistics.

It will be interesting to see the difference compared to the new data that will be collected on the 9th August 2011, which will be Census night 2011.

Because of the constant transient nature of Kununurra's population in the past 50 years, KHS Archive, Library, Museum & Research facility is actively seeking archives from past residents. If you have archival material in the way of photographs, documents, books or other objects, which you would like to be preserved locally for the future in KHS's purpose built archive facility, please Contact KHS.

Figures compiled here by KHS from the M$ Excell documents (attached and downloadable below - not the links), which were sourced from the Australian Bureau of Statistics on February 12th 2011 - Australian Bureau of Statisitics (Kununurra (UCL 514200) 10.7 sq. Kms).

Also see:  ABS QuickStats for Kununurra town site (10.7 square Kilometres) or ABS QuickStats for 6743 Postal Area which gives slightly greater results as it includes the outlying areas.