Destination Profile - Mount Isa, Queensland
Mount Isa is a vast, progressive mining city located in the heart of north-west Queensland and the Carpentaria-Mount Isa Mineral Province.
The city has a marked cosmopolitan flavour with more than 50 nationalities living and working in harmony. Mount Isa City covers an area of over 41,000 square kilometres, making it geographically the largest city in the world.
Situated 900km by road west of Townsville and about 1900km north-west of Brisbane, it is well equipped to satisfy residential, business and industrial needs. The western gateway to Queensland - Camooweal - is located 200 kilometres west on the national highway system.
In 1923, lone prospector John Campbell Miles, while travelling on a gold prospecting trip to the Northern Territory, camped by the banks of the Leichhardt River. Sampling a nearby rock outcrop, he realised that it was heavily mineralised. Campbell Miles had stumbled on to one of the world's richest copper, silver, lead and zinc ore bodies. He decided to call his discovery "Mount Isa" after the stories he had heard of the Mount Ida goldfield in Western Australia. Seventy-five years later, Mount Isa Mines is still one of Australia's major mining companies.
The natural vegetation of the region is dominated by spinifex and eucalypts, with river red gums providing cool shade along watercourses. Low open woodlands predominate between the rugged Selwyn Ranges and other colourful spinifex covered ranges in the region.
This destination is part of the Cape York Outback Paradise Australian Adventure.
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