BOURKE

town, north-central New South Wales, Australia, on the Darling River. It originated from a stockade built in 1835 by Sir Thomas Mitchell as a defense against Aborigines and was named after Governor Sir Richard Bourke. The town, surveyed in 1862 and made a municipality in 1878, was a busy port in the 1880s and 1890s, was incorporated into Darling Shire in 1955, and is now part of Bourke Shire. Located along the Mitchell Highway, with air and rail links to Sydney (410 miles southeast), Bourke serves a large section of outback (inland rural areas) that supports sheep raising and irrigated citrus fruit and fodder farming. An important wool-shipping point, the town has meatworks and a wool-scouring plant. The stockade, Fort Bourke, is preserved by the Royal Australian Historical Society. Pop. (1986) 3,018; (1991) 2,976.