BROKEN HILL

mining city, west-central New South Wales, Australia. It lies on the eastern flank of the Main Barrier Range, 30 miles (50 km) east of the South Australian border. Known as the Silver City, it is situated on one of the world's richest deposits of silver, lead, and zinc ores. The site, in a hot and subarid region, was first visited in 1844 by Charles Sturt, who named the humpbacked range Broken Hill. The settlement was founded after the discovery of lead and silver there in 1883. Mining operations were developed by the Broken Hill Proprietary Company, Ltd. (BHP), formed in 1885 (the company is now Australia's largest industrial enterprise, although it withdrew from Broken Hill in 1939). Declared a municipality in 1888, Broken Hill was made a city in 1907. The Barrier Industrial Council, an amalgamation of labour unions formed in 1925, exerts considerable control over the city's civic affairs. The mining field is one of Australia's greatest mineral assets, by the late 20th century having produced a huge quantity of ore (Australia is the world's largest exporter of lead, and most of its recorded production of lead has come from Broken Hill). Crude ore is milled in the city; lead concentrates are then shipped to Port Pirie (South Australia) for refining. Zinc concentrates for smelting and refining are sent by railway to Cockle Creek or Port Pirie or are exported to Tasmania. Both concentrates are a source of sulfur for the manufacture of sulfuric acid. The city is also the centre of the West Darling pastoral area. Broken Hill's commercial relations are principally with South Australia, because a rail connection was completed to Adelaide, 340 miles (550 km) southwest, in 1887, and there was no such link to Sydney (570 miles east) until 1927. Broken Hill is a modern city with a university college associated with the University of New South Wales, hospitals, shops, and hotels. It is the base for a Royal Flying Doctor Service and a school of the air (which conducts school lessons via radio for outback children). Broken Hill is linked by air and rail to most major Australian cities and is at the junction of the Silver City and Barrier highways. Water is pumped from as far away as the Darling River (70 miles east), and the city is actively developing a regeneration area around itself to halt the threat of drift sand coming from land once used for mining. The Menindee Lakes on the Darling form a 40,000-acre (16,000-hectare) recreation area. Pop. (1983 est.) 27,400.