Broken Hill is the most legendary city in the New South Wales outback: the 'Silver City', founded in 1883 on one of the richest silver, lead and zinc deposits in the world, and the birthplace of BHP, now one of the largest mining companies on the planet. Set in the middle of the red desert, more than a thousand kilometres from Sydney and closer to Adelaide, it's a one-of-a-kind place: an industrial city of wide streets and historic pubs surrounded by the vastness of the outback.
In 2015, after a decade-long campaign, it became the first entire city in Australia to be included on the National Heritage List, in recognition of its mining architecture, its working-class history and its role in the country's identity. Broken Hill combines that past of miners and powerful unions with a surprisingly lively art scene: galleries everywhere, the legacy of painter Pro Hart and the famous Living Desert sculptures silhouetted against the desert sunset.
On top of that, it's famous as a film location: the lunar landscapes of the Barrier Ranges and the ghost town of Silverton, half an hour away, were the setting for films such as Mad Max 2, The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert and Mission: Impossible II. Visiting Broken Hill means diving straight into the heart of the Australian outback, with its red light, its endless sunsets and a powerful history that runs from the Wilyakali people to large-scale mining.
The land of Broken Hill is Wilyakali country, home to the Aboriginal people who lived on these arid plains for thousands of years. In 1883, boundary rider Charles Rasp found what he thought was tin on a 'broken hill', and it turned out to be silver and lead: it was the largest and richest silver-lead-zinc deposit in the world. In 1885, Rasp and six partners (the 'Syndicate of Seven') founded the Broken Hill Proprietary Company (BHP), which would become Australia's biggest company. The city grew with the mine, and the harsh working conditions gave rise to an extremely powerful union movement, capped in 1923 by the Barrier Industrial Council. In 2015 it was declared Australia's first heritage-listed city. The full story is on our history page.
Read the full history ↓The birthplace of modern Australia: the First Fleet landed at Sydney Cove in 1788, on the lands of the Eora people. The country's most populous state and home to Sydney and its Opera House, it was the trunk from which all the other colonies branched off and the setting for the first gold rush.
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Origins, formation and what the sources say.
Long before miners put a 'broken hill' on their maps, these red plains of western New South Wales were Aboriginal Country, and they still are. The city of Broken Hill stands on the traditional lands of the Wilyakali people, one of the groups of the Barrier Ranges. At first sight this semi-arid region looks hostile, but the people who lived here knew it intimately. For thousands of years they read this dry landscape closely. They knew where to find water in hidden rock pools and short-lived rivers, which plants and animals to use in each season, and how to cross a vast territory along ancestral routes.
As everywhere in Australia, the land was not simply a resource but Country: a web of sacred sites, Dreaming stories and responsibilities passed down from one generation to the next. Gorges, rocky outcrops and permanent waterholes were places for gathering and ceremony. Remarkable evidence of that ancient presence survives today in nearby Mutawintji National Park. This oasis of red canyons was a meeting place for the peoples of the region for thousands of years, and it holds one of the most important collections of rock art and engravings in the state.
The arrival of European settlers changed this world completely, first with their sheep on the big inland stations and later with the mining boom. The Wilyakali and their neighbours were hit hard by the occupation of their land, the loss of access to water and food sources, and introduced diseases. But their connection to Country was never broken. Today Aboriginal guides share that heritage at places like Mutawintji, a reminder that the story of Broken Hill doesn't begin with Charles Rasp but thousands of years earlier.
The modern history of Broken Hill begins with a lucky mistake. In 1883 Charles Rasp, a boundary rider who checked the fences of a large sheep station on horseback, came across an odd rock formation that locals called 'the broken hill' because of its jagged outline. Rasp thought the dark rock held tin and took samples. The tests showed something much better: silver and lead. Without knowing it, he had found the visible tip of the largest and richest silver, lead and zinc deposit ever discovered.
Rasp didn't keep the find to himself. With six other men, all workers and staff from the same station, he formed a syndicate to claim and mine the lode. History remembers the group as the 'Syndicate of Seven'. The start was hard. The first samples were poor and the venture looked like it would fail. Their luck turned in early 1885, when one of the partners, Philip Charley, found the first major deposit of very high-grade silver on the lease. Almost overnight, the hill nobody had wanted became one of the most valuable mines on the planet.
That same year, 1885, the syndicate became a company: the Broken Hill Proprietary Company Limited, better known as BHP. It would grow into Australia's largest company and one of the biggest mining companies in the world, with operations on every continent. Around the mine a city grew out of almost nothing, at dizzying speed, in the middle of the desert. Within a few decades Broken Hill, the 'Silver City', went from a handful of tents to a city of tens of thousands, with wide streets laid out for bullock wagons and grand hotels from its golden age.
Broken Hill's wealth came at a huge human cost, and that suffering gave rise to one of the strongest labour movements in Australian history. Working underground in the lead mines was extremely dangerous. Toxic dust caused lead poisoning and lung diseases such as pneumoconiosis and silicosis, and badly dug tunnels could cave in at any time. Life in a desert town with scarce water added epidemics such as typhoid. Over the years, more than 800 miners died from accidents and diseases linked to the mine.
The workers fought back by organising. Between 1889 and 1920, Broken Hill went through at least four major disputes that became legendary in Australian labour history. The 1892 strike lasted sixteen weeks, amid fears over lead and typhoid. Together with the brutal 1909 lockout by BHP, it left a deep mark on the community. The peak came with the 'Big Strike', which shut down the mines from May 1919 to November 1920. The miners demanded a shorter working week, safe conditions underground and compensation for respiratory diseases.
That fight won historic gains. The Big Strike secured shorter working hours and, above all, compensation for lead poisoning and silicosis, a pioneering step for workers' rights. Meanwhile, the Chapman Commission (1919-1921) carried out a thorough investigation into how common lung disease was among miners and documented the damage scientifically. In 1923 the Barrier Industrial Council was founded, a federation of 18 unions that became one of the most powerful organisations in the city. For decades it controlled almost every part of working life in Broken Hill, and the conditions it imposed made the city a union stronghold unlike any other in the country.
As the 20th century went on, Broken Hill became much more than a mine. It became a cultural symbol. Surprisingly for a working-class desert town, a remarkable art scene grew up here. Its best-loved figure was Kevin 'Pro' Hart, a former miner who became one of Australia's most popular painters and painted outback life and its workers in vibrant colours. In the 1970s and 80s the 'Brushmen of the Bush' group brought desert painting to national and international fame. Today the city is full of galleries and studios.
The same landscape turned the region into a natural film set: endless plains, red light, straight roads running to the horizon and the near-ghost town of Silverton, 25 km away. Productions shot here include Mad Max 2 (The Road Warrior), The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, Razorback and Mission: Impossible 2. The Palace Hotel, with its lavish murals, became famous as 'the Priscilla hotel' and is now a well-known icon of Australian LGBTQIA+ culture. The Living Desert sculptures complete this creative identity. Artists from around the world carved them in 1993, and they stand out against the sunset.
Mining never went away. The deposit is still worked more than 140 years after Rasp, making it one of the longest-lived in the world. But the city also learned to broaden its identity. Final recognition came in 2015, after a decade-long campaign, when Broken Hill became the first entire city in Australia to be included on the National Heritage List, for its architecture, its mining history and its role in shaping the nation's identity.
A visit to Broken Hill today takes you through all of these layers at once: ancient Wilyakali Country, Charles Rasp's lucky mistake, the birth of BHP, the miners' struggles that won rights for the whole country, desert art and movie-worthy sunsets. Deep in the remote outback, the Silver City is still one of Australia's most fascinating stories.
