The Facts

Location

Mount Isa is located just 200 kilometres from the Northern Territory border and 1,829 kilometres from Queensland’s capital, Brisbane. The nearest major city, Townsville, can be found 883 kilometres from The Isa.

Mount Isa covers an area of over 43,310 square kilometres, making it geographically the second largest city in Australia to Kalgoorlie-Boulder, Western Australia.

Population

With a population of approximately 23,500, Mount Isa is a major service centre for north-west Queensland.

Climate

You haven’t experienced the outback until you have experienced the Isa summer with temperatures reaching the high 30s (degrees celsius).

The winter months are much more comfortable with temperatures reaching the mid-20s.  The nights can be quite chilly so make sure you bring plenty of warm clothing to rug up in.  The lowest temperature ever recorded in Mount Isa was 2.9 degrees!

Mount Isa has an average of 9.5 hours of sunshine a day and only 50 wet days per year.

History

Famous for its rich mining history, the region was first home to the Kalkadoon people. Masterful tool and weapon makers, the Kalkadoon goods were so prized that items such as stone knives, boomerangs, woomera spears and shields were found as far away as South Australia.

In 1923, a lone prospector in search of gold, John Campbell Miles, discovered silver-lead ore about one kilometre across the valley of the Leichhardt River, in north west Queensland.

He named his prospecting leases Mount Isa.

Almost 100 years later, the Mount Isa Mine now owned by Xstrata and is still one of Australia’s largest producers of copper ore.