The human history of Western Australia commenced between 40,000 and 60,000 years ago with the arrival of Aboriginal Australians on the northwest coast. The first inhabitants expanded across the east and south of the continent.
 The first recorded European contact was in 1616, when Dutch explorer Dirk Hartog landed on the west coast, having been blown off course while en route to Batavia, nowadays called Jakarta.
 Although many expeditions visited the coast during the next 200 years, there was no lasting attempt at establishing a permanent settlement until December 1826 when an expedition on behalf of the New South Wales colonial government, led by Major Edmund Lockyer, landed at King George Sound, and founded what became the port city of Albany. On 21 January 1827 Lockyer formally took possession for the British Crown  the portion of New Holland not yet claimed by the crown; that is, the portion west of 129th meridian east. This was followed by the establishment of the Swan River Colony in 1829, which ultimately became the present-day capital, Perth. The harsh conditions faced by the settlers resulted in population growth being minimal until the discovery of gold in the 1880s.  Since the gold rush, the population of the state has risen steadily, with substantial growth in the period since World War II.
 Western Australia gained the right of self-government in 1890, and joined with the five other states to form the Commonwealth of Australia in 1901. The desire of Western Australians to revert to complete self-governance, separate from the Commonwealth, culminated in 1933 with a successful referendum for secession supported by 68% of electors. In 1935 the British parliament declined to act since secession would require the assent of the Australian parliament, and the movement lapsed with an improving economy and generous federal grants.
 When Australia's first inhabitants arrived on the northwest coast 40,000 to 60,000 years ago the sea levels were much lower. The Kimberley coast at one time was only about 90 kilometres (56 mi) from Timor, which itself was the last in a line of closely spaced islands for humans to travel across. Therefore, this was a possible (even probable) location for which Australia's first immigrants could arrive via some primitive boat. Other possible immigration routes were via islands further north and then through New Guinea.[citation needed]
 In 1999 Charles Dortch identified chert and calcrete flake stone tools, found at Rottnest Island, as possibly dating to at least 50,000 years ago. A 2018 study using archaeobotany dated evidence of continuous human habitation at Karnatukul (Serpent's Glen) in the Carnarvon Range in the Little Sandy Desert from around 50,000 years ago.
 Over the next tens of thousands of years various groups of Indigenous Australians slowly moved southward and eastward across the landmass. Aboriginal people were well established throughout Western Australia by the time European ships started accidentally arriving en route to Batavia (now Jakarta) in the early 17th century.[citation needed]
 The first European to sight Western Australia was the Dutch explorer, Dirk Hartog, the first European to suggest to have found a continent there, who on 26 October 1616 landed at what is now known as Cape Inscription, Dirk Hartog Island. Before departing, Hartog left behind an inscribed pewter plate affixed to a post.  In 1696 the plate was discovered and replaced by Willem de Vlamingh and repatriated to the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. A multitude of Dutch visits followed during that century, charting virtually the whole of the west coast, the Western Australian south coast and Australia's northern coast.
 The first English vessel to visit, when attempting to sail the Dutch-established Brouwer Route to the Indies, was Tryall, an East India Company-owned East Indiaman under the command of John Brookes who in 1622 sighted Point Cloates before later on 25 May wrecking on Tryal Rocks, off the northwest coast of Australia. Some of the 143 crew remained on the Monte Bello Islands for 7 days, during that time sighting Barrow Island, before sailing to Batavia in a longboat. A second boat brought some more crew to Batavia, so just over 40 people survived, including Brookes. Almost one hundred crew apparently perished in the wreck. Tryall became Australia's oldest known shipwreck.
 A later English visitor was William Dampier, who in 1699 sailed down some of the western coast of Australia.  He noted the lack of water and in his description of Shark Bay in his account "A Voyage to New Holland", he expressed his frustration:
 It was the 7th of August when we came into Shark's Bay; in which we anchored at three several places, and stayed at the first of them (on the west side of the bay) till the 11th. During which time we searched about, as I said, for fresh water, digging wells, but to no purpose. A number of sections of the Western Australian coastline were given names which did not last past the exploratory era in names of features – such as Eendrachtsland. However some names, such as 't Landt van de Leeuwin (Leeuwin's Land), materialised at a later date as Cape Leeuwin.
 Below is a timeline of significant events from the 1616 landfall of Dirk Hartog until the eventual settlement of the Swan River Colony in 1829:
 The first formal claim of possession for Great Britain was made on 29 September 1791 by Commander (later Captain) George Vancouver RN, on a spot he named Possession Point, at the tip of the peninsula between the waters he also named Princess Royal Harbour and King George the Third's Sound at Albany ("the Third" was dropped from the name in 1826).
 In the early 19th century the British became concerned about the possibility of a French colony being established on the west coast of Australia. In 1826 the Governor of New South Wales, Ralph Darling, ordered the establishment of a settlement at King George's Sound. An army detachment was sent from Sydney headed by Major Edmund Lockyer with eighteen soldiers, one captain, one doctor, one storekeeper and twenty-three convicts.
 On 21 January 1827 the whole of Australia was finally claimed as British territory when Major Lockyer formally annexed the western portion of the continent in a ceremony on King George Sound.
 In March 1831 the penal settlement was withdrawn, and the control of King George's Sound was transferred from New South Wales to the Swan River Colony. Captain James Stirling decreed that the settlement would be named "Albany" from 1 January 1832.
 The first significant European settlements were established on the Swan River by James Stirling in 1829. The colonists first sighted land on 1 June, an official Proclamation was made on 18 June and the foundation of the colony took place on 12 August. As Lieutenant Governor, Stirling had sole authority to draft laws and decide day-to-day affairs. On 6 February 1832, the colony was renamed Western Australia.
 Major towns of the colony developed slowly into the port city of Fremantle, the main settlement of Perth 32 kilometres (20 mi) up river, and Guildford.
 Much of the land around the Swan River Colony was unsuitable for agriculture and it was inevitable that the colony would have to expand beyond the Swan River area after the most fertile locations were quickly settled.
 Sheep farming was the most successful early agricultural activity, and the basis of all expansion until the 1850s.
 While Western Australia was initially a "free settlement", economic problems for settler capitalists led them to seek the transportation of British convicts. WA became a penal colony in 1850.
 The Gregory brothers led major exploration expeditions to many parts of the colony, including:
 By 1859, all the other Australian colonies had their own parliaments and colonists in Western Australia began pushing for the right to govern themselves. The British Colonial Office opposed this because of the slow rate of growth and the presence of convicts. Petitions asking for some of the positions in the Legislative Council to be filled by elected members were presented to London twice during the 1860s.
 By 1868, over 9,000 convicts had been transported to Western Australia on 43 convict ship voyages.
 Wool production, usually on large stations, was also the basis of expansion further east and northward.
 The first permanent settlements in the North West (later divided into the Pilbara and Kimberley regions) took place in the mid-1860s, initially at the Harding River, De Grey River and Roebourne (gazetted in 1867). Pearling also came to dominate the North West, initially in Nickol Bay, with a fleet at Tien Tsin Harbor (later renamed Cossack). In the North West, unlike southern WA, the labour force was dominated by Indigenous Australians, often under harsh forms of unfree labour.
 In 1870, some members of the Legislative Council were elected for the first time, although only male settlers with significant property could vote and the Governor could still veto the council's decisions.
 John Forrest led two major expeditions:
 In 1872, controversial explorer Peter Egerton Warburton made a journey from Alice Springs to the Western Australian coast.
 Ernest Giles twice traversed the Gibson Desert between 1872 and 1876.
 During the 1870s, the Murchison and Gascoyne regions were also settled by Europeans.
 Until the 1880s the economy of the state was based largely on wool and wheat. A major change in the colony's fortunes occurred in 1885 when gold was discovered and prospectors by the tens of thousands swarmed across the land in a desperate attempt to discover new goldfields.
 In 1887 a new constitution, including proposals for responsible government, was drafted and sent to London by Governor Broome for approval. It was argued that due to the increasing wealth being generated by gold rushes, Western Australia should become a self-governing colony.  An Act granting self-government was passed by the British Parliament in 1890, giving the Colony independence from the UK in matters other than foreign policy, defence and "native affairs".  Section 70 of the self-government act established an Aboriginal Protection Board, under the control of the British Parliament, not the Western Australian one.  Governor Broome had earlier warned the British Colonial Office that the Western Australians were not to be trusted in matters relating to Aboriginal persons.  A further clause to the constitution stated that 5,000 pounds or one percent of state revenues, whichever was the greater, was to be allocated to Aboriginal persons for their welfare and advancement.  Many settlers resented these clauses, and Western Australia has never honoured this clause to its own constitution.  A previous Governor, Sir William Robinson, was re-appointed to supervise the change.  He travelled by train from Albany to Perth and towns en route lit bonfires and people gathered at railway sidings to celebrate his arrival and the new constitution.  His arrival in Perth on 21 October 1890 saw the city decorated with elaborate floral arches spanning the city's main streets and buildings were decked with banners and flags.
 In 1891 the rush to the Murchison goldfields began when Tom Cue discovered gold at the town which now bears his name. In the years that followed dozens of gold towns – Day Dawn, Nannine, Peak Hill, Garden Gully, Dead Finish, Pinnicles, Austin Island and Austin Mainland – flourished only to be abandoned when the seams were exhausted and the gold fever moved on.
 The influx of miners from the eastern colonies and from overseas increased the presence of trade unions in Western Australia. The Trades and Labor Council, Perth was established in 1891 and Perth Trades Hall opened (1912). The first edition of the Westralian Worker appeared on 7 September 1900 and was followed shortly afterwards by the opening of the Kalgoorlie Trades Hall, the first such hall in Western Australia. A Trades Hall was opened in Fremantle in 1904.
 An influx of people from Victoria, South Australia, and Tasmania led to Australian rules football becoming the dominant football code when several local rugby football clubs switched codes.
 Sir John Forrest – the first Premier of Western Australia and its only premier as a Colony – clashed with Robinson over Section 70. While Forrest had argued that Western Australians should accept Section 70 to obtain self-government, by 1892 he was attempting to have it changed. William Traylen MP argued that "as our revenue is growing up now, and the natives can scarcely be said to be increasing in numbers, we shall be paying a very undue proportion of our income as a colony for the purpose of supporting the Aboriginal native race".
 Discoveries at Coolgardie (1892) and Paddy Hannan's discovery at Kalgoorlie (1893) sparked true gold fever. Coolgardie prospered particularly well, becoming the third largest town in the colony after Perth and Fremantle.
 Gold inspired a new wave of exploration, including David Carnegie who, in 1896, led an epic expedition that traveled through the deserts north of Coolgardie, through the Gibson and Great Sandy Deserts to Halls Creek in the Kimberley, before returning to Coolgardie.
 In the late 19th century there was talk of the gold-rich region around Kalgoorlie seceding from Western Australia, as a colony/state called "Auralia". This campaign coincided with the reluctance in Perth regarding Western Australia taking part in Australian Federation.  Talk of miners' separation and them taking their wealth elsewhere was seen as a threat to the stability of the colony.
 In 1899, Forrest succeeded unilaterally passed the Constitution Amendment Act, taking control of Aboriginal Affairs without approval of the British House of Commons. Many Aboriginal people argue that the 1899 amendment was an illegal usurpation of British government power and one percent of accumulated Government revenues should be set aside for Aboriginal welfare, as intended.
 On 1 January 1901, following a proclamation by Queen Victoria, Western Australia, along with the other five British colonies of New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania and Victoria, formed the federation of the Commonwealth of Australia, of which they each became component states. However, Western Australia was rather reluctant to join the union, doing so only after they were offered a five-year transitional period on inter-state tariffs and a transcontinental railway line.
 The wealth generated from gold soon disappeared and by the early years of the 20th century, the economy was once again dependent on wool and wheat. This dependency meant that a dramatic fall in wool and wheat prices in the late 1920s – early 1930s saw the state's economic collapse. It was not to recover until after World War II when the Federal Government's postwar immigration policy saw a huge influx of migrants, nearly all of them from Europe, in the period 1947 to 1970.
 Important events in Western Australia included the following:
 Culture:Anglosphere