Geraldton, Western Australia in the context of "Noongar"

The Mid West region is one of the nine regions of Western Australia. It is a sparsely populated region extending from the west coast of Western Australia, about 200 kilometres (120 mi) north and south of its administrative centre of Geraldton and inland to 450 kilometres (280 mi) east of Wiluna in the Gibson Desert.

It has a total area of 285,497 square kilometres (110,231 sq mi), and a permanent population of about 54,000 people, more than half of those in Geraldton.

In the latter part of the nineteenth century, discoveries of gold at a number of locations in Western Australia caused large influxes of prospectors from overseas and interstate, and classic gold rushes. Significant finds included:

• Halls Creek in 1885, found by Charles Hall and Jack Slattery. Triggered the "Kimberley gold rush".
• Near Southern Cross in 1887, found by the party of Harry Francis Anstey. The "Yilgarn gold rush".
• Cue in 1891, found by Michael Fitzgerald, Edward Heffernan and Tom Cue. The "Murchison gold rush".
• Coolgardie in 1892, by Arthur Bailey and William Ford.
• Kalgoorlie in 1893, by Patrick "Paddy" Hannan, Tom Flanagan and Dan Shea.

A small rush at Nundamurrah Pool, on the Greenough River, near Mullewa, east of Geraldton occurred in August 1893.

Northampton is a town 52 kilometres (32 mi) north of Geraldton, in the Mid West region of Western Australia. At the 2011 census, the town had a population of 868. The town contains a National Trust building. The town lies on the North West Coastal Highway. Originally called The Mines, Northampton was gazetted in 1864 and named after the colony's Governor, John Hampton. The town was sited in the Nokanena Brook valley, between the hamlets around the two major copper mines in the area, the Wanerenooka and the Gwalla.

It was the service town to the micronation, the Principality of Hutt River.