Newman, Western Australia facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Newman Western Australia
Newman residential area
Newman Location in Western Australia
Established	1966
Postcode(s)	6753
Elevation	544 m (1,785 ft)
Area	[convert: needs a number]
Location	1,189 km (739 mi) N of Perth 452 km (281 mi) S of Port Hedland 404 km (251 mi) N of Meekatharra 277 km (172 mi) SE of Tom Price
LGA(s)	Shire of East Pilbara
State electorate(s)	Pilbara
Federal Division(s)	Durack
Mean max temp Mean min temp Annual rainfall 38.2 °C 101 °F 17.3 °C 63 °F 312.0 mm 12.3 in

Newman is a town in the Pilbara region of Western Australia. It was first called Mount Newman until 1981. This town is about 1,186 kilometres (737 miles) north of Perth. It is also about 9 kilometres (5.6 miles) north of the Tropic of Capricorn. You can get there by using the Great Northern Highway.

Newman is a modern town built for mining. Its houses look very different from the red desert around them. In 2021, about 6,456 people lived in Newman. The Hickman Crater, which is a hole made by a meteorite, was found in 2007. It is 35 kilometres (22 miles) north of Newman.

How Newman Began: A Look at its History

Newman was started in 1966 by a company called Mt. Newman Mining Co. Pty Ltd. This company is part of BHP, a big mining group. They built the town to help with mining iron ore at the nearby Mount Whaleback mine.

The town gets its name from Mount Newman. This mountain was named after Aubrey Woodward Newman. He was a government surveyor who sadly died young in 1896 while on an expedition. William Frederick Rudall took over the trip and named the mountain to remember his leader.

Aboriginal people have lived in this area for a very long time, about 45,000 years. The Martu people are made up of about twelve language groups. They lived across the Gibson Desert and Great Sandy Desert. Over time, the Martu people slowly lost their land and their traditional way of life. This happened as Europeans moved further inland from the late 1800s. Explorers, Christian missions, and the discovery of gold at Marble Bar and Wiluna caused Indigenous people to be forced from their family lands.

What Can You Find in Newman?

Newman was built as a "company town," which means a company planned it. It has a main area with shops and hotels. Around this core are places where people live. The more industrial areas are on the edges of town.

You can find two supermarkets in Newman: a Woolworths and an IGA. There are also two shopping centres, three hotels, and three bars or restaurants that are not inside hotels. The town has one public outdoor swimming pool for everyone to use.

In late 2017, a new shopping centre called Parnawarri Retail Centre opened. "Parnawarri" means "united" or "all together" in the Nyiyaparli language. This centre has the town's second supermarket (IGA), a Dome coffee shop, SportsPower, and a Chicken Treat. The mining company BHP spent $30 million to build this retail centre.

Newman has several schools for kids. These include Newman Primary School, South Newman Primary School, Newman Senior High School, and Rawa Community School.

Getting Around and Important Services

Newman is located at the end of route 138, where it meets the Great Northern Highway.

The town has its own airport, called Newman Airport, for air travel.

There is a private railway line, the Mount Newman railway, that connects Newman to Port Hedland. Port Hedland's port was made bigger to handle shipping the iron ore to other countries. On June 21, 2001, a train that was 7.35 kilometres (4.57 miles) long travelled from Newman to Port Hedland. This train had 682 ore cars and eight locomotives! It is listed as the world's longest train ever. Usually, the ore trains are more than 2 kilometres (1.2 miles) long. Newman also helps serve nearby mining towns like Tom Price and Paraburdoo.

Electricity for Newman comes from Alinta. They have a power station that uses gas and a large battery. This station also provides power to the Roy Hill mine, and its power grid reaches the Cloudbreak mine and Christmas Creek mine.

Newman's Buildings: Built for the Desert

Newman was built in the 1960s. So, its buildings look like the modern styles from that time. They are mostly practical and don't have a lot of fancy decorations. Since a steel company built the town, most buildings use a steel frame. Many homes are made from two parts that were built somewhere else (prefabricated) and then put together into a steel frame. The steel columns are even left showing on the outside of the houses.

This way of building shows off the company's steel products. It also makes the houses very strong against cyclone winds, which can happen in the area. For the same reason, many houses are built a few steps off the ground. Lots of houses also have big air-conditioning units next to them. These are needed to keep cool during the very hot summer temperatures.

What is Newman's Climate Like?

Newman has a hot desert climate. This means it has very hot summers and mild winters. The temperature often reaches or goes above 38 degrees Celsius (100 degrees Fahrenheit) for many days in the summer. On January 15, 1998, the temperature reached a record high of 47 degrees Celsius (117 degrees Fahrenheit).

The average rainfall each year is about 329.5 millimetres (13 inches). This amount of rain would normally mean it's a semi-arid climate. But because it's so hot and dry, and the land is barren, it's considered a desert climate.

Rain is not common, but during the summer, from December to April, moisture from monsoons can come in. This makes the air more humid and can cause heavy storms sometimes. The winter months are mild to warm. Daily high temperatures are usually between 20 and 26 degrees Celsius (68 and 79 degrees Fahrenheit). Nighttime temperatures rarely drop below 6 degrees Celsius (43 degrees Fahrenheit).

Images for kids

• 

  Mount Newman

• 

  Satellite image of Newman, to the East of Mount Whaleback mine, on 2 October 2017.

• 

  The Dome Cafe seen at the front of Parnawarri

• 

  Iron deposits

See also

In Spanish: Newman (Australia Occidental) para niños