The Tiwi Islands are located 40 kilometres north of Darwin, where the Arafura Sea joins the Timor Sea. They are two separate islands, Melville and Bathurst, totalling 8,320 kilometres². Today the islands are home to about 2,500 people.
The islands are separated from each other by the Apsley Strait (62 km long and 550 metres to 5 km wide). The largest towns are Wurrumiyanga (called Nguyi until 2010) on Bathurst, Pirlangimpi (also known as Garden Point) and Milikapiti (or Snake Cove) on Melville.
Most of the islanders are Aboriginal Tiwi people, they are culturally and linguistically very different from the Aboriginal people of the nearby mainland region of Arnhem. The Tiwi people have lived here for about 7,000 years.
In 1705, the first ships with Europeans arrived at Shark Cove on Melville Island - these were the Dutch. The first European settlement here was Fort Dundas near the present town of Pirlangimpi on Melville Island. Founded in September 1824, the fort existed only 5 years - until 1829, when it was abandoned, including because of the hostility of the local aborigines. In 1911 a Catholic mission was established on the islands and in 1912 they were declared an Aboriginal reserve. A wooden church built in the 1930s is now a landmark of Wurrumiyang.
The islands are dominated by a tropical monsoon climate which, along with geographical isolation, accounts for the distinctive flora and fauna found here. The native eucalypt forests are the tallest and most massive in northern Australia, and the rainforests are unusually dense and extensive. There are 38 species of endangered animals and several species of plants and invertebrates found nowhere else in the world, such as the earth snail and some species of dragonfly. The Tiwi Islands are the world's largest nesting site for the Berg's Tern and also home to a large population of the vulnerable olive ridley turtle. A project to conserve this sea turtle in its natural habitat began in 2007. The seas surrounding the islands are home to sharks and saltwater crocodiles.
