Northampton is a small town in Western Australia with 813 residents. It is located about 50 kilometers north of Geraldton , 430 kilometers south of Carnarvon and about 480 kilometers north of the capital Perth . Northampton is on the North West Coastal Highway , which is part of the Australian National Highway 1 . Northampton is in the Mid West region of Western Australia on the edge of the Wheatbelt , the country's breadbasket.
Northampton was founded after copper and lead were discovered in the area in 1842. The soon-to-be-built mine and the town were then called Gwalla. Northampton was officially recognized as a city in 1864, but it was not given its current name until 1871. This is a combination of the name of the city of Northampton in England and the name of the then governor of Western Australia, John Steven Hampton. In order to be able to transport the ores extracted from the nearby mine more quickly to the next port in the city of Port Gregory, a railway line was opened in 1879. The link was the first in Western Australia to be established by the government. The connection was shut down in 1957.
One of the most important industries is tourism. Due to its location, Northampton is crossed by many tourists who are on their way to Monkey Mia or Exmouth from Perth . There are cave paintings of Aboriginal people in the area . Another tourist attraction in the vicinity of Northampton is the Micronation Principality of Hutt River (German: Fürstentum von Hutt River ), an approximately 75 km 2 farm, whose owner declared it an independent country independent of Australia in April 1970 and with the Issuing its own postage stamps, coins and passports has not been formally recognized by other countries to this day, but has received a great deal of public attention.
