The Latest Breaking News from State Library of Western Australia

Stretching 150km along the coast from Two Rocks to Mandurah, Perth has a claim to be the world's longest city. How did it get here and is it sustainable?

Does the discovery of a Ming Dynasty Buddha sculpture found near Shark Bay in remote Western Australia “rewrite history” and suggest the Chinese first visited Australia 600 years ago?

From almost as soon as the WA government was formed, it began to pass laws related to the minutiae of how people lived, worked and played.

From an abandoned hospital with nothing but the wind for company, to a drive-in cinema swallowed by shrubs, the Australian bush is reclaiming big dreams that saw a bustling town erected in the Western Australian desert.

Noelle Beasley took on a secretarial job at the ABC in Perth in 1950, and quickly found herself asked to do everything from running the concert department to appearing on the cover of a magazine.

Hundreds lived in makeshift homes in the shadow of the Fremantle Smelting Works for decades in the 1900s. Now a researcher has combed the archives to tell the stories of its inhabitants.

The West Australian government hopes the final closure of an asbestos-riddled town will at last deter social media influencers and 'danger tourists' from visiting.

James Noble’s harrowing discovery on the banks of the Forrest River in 1926 helped uncover a trail of slaughter across WA’s east Kimberley and continues to haunt his descendants

Almost as soon as the Swan River Colony formed, laws were brought in to ban a host of activities on Sundays. Those laws weren't repealed until more than a century later.