How Australia Earns Billions From Land That Nobody Lives On

Australia earned 116 billion Australian dollars selling iron ore abroad in 2024-25, and nearly all of it comes out of the Pilbara, a corner of Western Australia about the size of Spain where about 58,000 people lived in 2021. We follow the ore from the company towns of the 1960s and a 2012 plan for two cities of 50,000 people each, along the miners' railways to the port and on to who gets paid, and see why more and more of the workers fly in from Perth for two-week shifts. More on how geography makes countries rich:    • How Geography Makes Countries Rich   Chapters 0:00 Billions of dollars, but no city 2:15 When the money built towns 5:03 The work moves onto planes 7:49 A plan for two cities, a boom and a bust 12:59 The miners' trains and the port 16:05 Who gets paid 19:09 Who does live here 21:25 So where is the city? Sources Department of Industry: https://www.industry.gov.au/publicati... OECD: https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/... Government of Western Australia: https://www.watc.wa.gov.au/media/uosc... House of Representatives Standing Committee on Regional Australia: https://aphref.aph.gov.au/house/commi... Government of Western Australia: https://www.legislation.wa.gov.au/leg... Government of Western Australia: https://www.wa.gov.au/system/files/20... Reserve Bank of Australia: https://www.rba.gov.au/speeches/2015/... Town of Port Hedland: https://www.porthedland.wa.gov.au/doc... Pilbara Ports Authority: https://www.parliament.wa.gov.au/publ... Department of Mines: https://www.wa.gov.au/system/files/20... Australian Taxation Office: https://data.gov.au/data/dataset/c252... Australian Bureau of Statistics: https://www.abs.gov.au/census/find-ce... Credits Glen Dillon, CC BY-SA 3.0: commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Karratha_Western_Australia_Aerial2.jpg James Bromberger, CC BY-SA 4.0: commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Elizabeth_Quay,_Perth,_Western_Australia.webm GeoBoundaries gbOpen ADM2, CC BY 4.0: www.geoboundaries.org/ Calistemon, CC BY-SA 3.0: commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Brockman_4_train_6.JPG Public domain: NASA; Natural Earth. NASA does not endorse this channel. Stock footage and photos: Pexels, Pixabay and CC0 works. Contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data 2024-2025 Map data: © OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL 1.0: openstreetmap.org/copyright Relief: NASA/METI/AIST/Japan Spacesystems and U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team (2019), ASTER Global Digital Elevation Model V003, via NASA GIBS: doi.org/10.5067/ASTER/ASTGTM.003 Music: YouTube Audio Library. #Australia #Pilbara #IronOre #Geography