Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia. With a population of 1,650,000 (2009), Perth ranks fourth amongst the nation's cities, with a growth rate consistently above the national average.

Perth was founded on 12 June 1829 by Captain James Stirling as the political centre of the free-settler Swan River Colony. It has continued to serve as the seat of government for Western Australia to the present day. Its port, Fremantle is a city in its own right and slightly older than Perth.

The metropolitan area is located in the south-west of the continent between the Indian Ocean and a low coastal escarpment known as the Darling Range. The central business district and suburbs of Perth are situated on the Swan River. Perth is tied for fifth place in The Economist's 2009 list of the World's Most Livable Cities.

Perth became known worldwide as the "City of Lights" as city residents lit their house lights and streetlights as American astronaut John Glenn passed overhead while orbiting the earth on Friendship 7 in 1962. The city repeated its feat as Glenn passed overhead on the Space Shuttle in 1998.

Geography
Perth is one of the most isolated metropolitan areas on earth. The nearest city to Perth with a population over one million is Adelaide in South Australia, which is 2,104 kilometres (1,307 mi) away. Perth is geographically closer to Dili (East Timor), Singapore and Jakarta (Indonesia), than it is to Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane. The antipode of Hamilton, Bermuda is located 45 kilometres offshore from Point Peron in Perth's southern suburbs.

Central business district
The central business district of Perth is bounded by the Swan River to the south and east, with Kings Park on the western end, while the railway lines form a northern border. St Georges Terrace is the prominent street of the area with 1.3 million m² of office space in the CBD. Hay Street and Murray Street have most of the retail and entertainment facilities. The tallest building in the city is Central Park, which is the sixth tallest building in Australia,[26] although it is to be surpassed by City Square in 2012.

Climate
Perth receives moderate though highly seasonal rainfall. Summers are generally hot and dry, lasting from December to late March, with February generally being the hottest month of the year, making Perth a classic example of a Mediterranean climate. Summer is not completely devoid of rain with sporadic rainfall in the form of short-lived thunderstorms, weak cold fronts and on very rare occasions decaying tropical cyclones from Western Australia's north-west which can bring significant falls. The hottest ever recorded temperature in Perth was 46.2 °C (115.2 °F) on 23 February 1991, although Perth Airport recorded 46.7 °C (116.1 °F) on the same day. On most summer afternoons a sea breeze, also known as "The Fremantle Doctor", blows from the south-west, providing relief from the hot north-easterly winds. Temperatures often fall below 30 degrees a few hours after the arrival of the wind change.

Winters are relatively cool and wet, with most of Perth's annual rainfall falling between May and September. The coldest temperature recorded in Perth was −0.7 °C (31 °F) on 17 June 2006.[31] The coldest temperature within the Perth metropolitan area was -3.4 °C (25.9 °F) on the same day at Jandakot Airport.

Though most rainfall occurs during winter, the wettest day ever was on 9 February 1992 when 120.6 millimetres (4.75 in) fell.[31] The rainfall pattern has changed in Perth and Southwest Western Australia since the mid-1970s. A significant reduction in winter rainfall has been observed with a greater number of extreme rainfall events in the summer months.

Economy
By virtue of its population and role as the administrative centre for business and government, Perth dominates the Western Australian economy, despite the major mining, petroleum and agricultural export industries located elsewhere in the state. Perth’s function as the State’s capital city, its economic base and population size have also created development opportunities for many other businesses oriented to local or more diversified markets.

Perth’s economy has been changing in favour of the service industries since the 1950s. Although one of the major sets of services it provides are related to the resources industry and, to a lesser extent, agriculture, most people in Perth are not connected to either; they have jobs that provide services to other people in Perth.

As a result of Perth's relative geographical isolation, it has never had the necessary conditions to develop significant manufacturing industries other than those serving the immediate needs of its residents, mining and agriculture and some specialised areas, such as, in recent times, niche ship building and maintenance. It was simply cheaper to import all the needed manufactured goods from either the eastern states or overseas.

Industrial employment influenced the economic geography of Perth. After WWII, Perth experienced suburban expansion aided by high levels of car ownership. Workforce decentralisation and transport improvements made it possible for the establishment of small-scale manufacturing in the suburbs. Many firms took advantage of relatively cheap land to build spacious, single-storey plants in suburban locations where parking, access and traffic congestion were minimal. "The former close ties of manufacturing with near-central and/or rail-side locations were loosened."

Industrial estates such as Kwinana, Welshpool and Kewdale were post-war additions contributing to the growth of manufacturing south of the river. The establishment of the Kwinana industrial area was supported by standardisation of the east-west rail gauge linking Perth with eastern Australia. Since the 1950s, heavy industry has dominated the location including an oil refinery, steel-rolling mill with a blast furnace, alumina refinery, power station and a nickel refinery. Another development, also linked with rail standardisation, was in 1968 when the Kewdale Freight Terminal was developed adjacent to the Welshpool industrial area, replacing the former Perth railway yards.

With significant population growth post-WWII [50], employment growth occurred not in manufacturing but in retail and wholesale trade, business services, health, education, community and personal services and in public administration. Increasingly it was these services sectors, concentrated around the Perth metropolitan area, that provided jobs.