NARROGIN

town, southwestern Western Australia. It developed in the 1880s, when the Great Southern Railway came through the site, and a hotel was erected at the trackside. The settlement grew around the hotel and became a town in 1895. Its name derives from the Aboriginal term gnargajin, meaning water hole. Situated on the Great Southern Highway and near Albany Highway, the town is the junction of rail lines extending east to the Wheat Belt (q.v.), west and south to the coast, and northwest to Perth (105 mi ). It is a market for the grain, wool, and pigs produced in the area. Large mallet-tree (eucalyptus or gum-tree) plantations yield tannin. The Narrogin Farm School was founded in 1914. Pop. (1981) 4,969.