Melville Island

• Name — Melville • Native Name — (Tiwi) Yermalner • Location — Timor Sea • Archipelago — Tiwi Islands • Major Islands — Melville, Irrititu • Area Km2 — 5786 • Country — Australia • Country Admin Divisions Title — Territory • Country Admin Divisions — Northern Territory • Country Largest City — Milikapiti • Country Largest City Population — 559 • Population — c. 1030 • Ethnic Groups — Tiwi

Indigenous people have occupied the area that became the Tiwi Islands for at least 40,000 years. It is said that the first European to sight the island was Abel Tasman in 1644. Explorer Phillip Parker King (son of governor of New South Wales Philip Gidley King) named it for Robert Dundas, 2nd Viscount Melville, first Lord of the Admiralty, who is also commemorated by the much larger Melville Island in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Shortly after this, the British made the first attempt to settle Australia's north coast, at the short-lived Fort Dundas on Melville Island. The settlement lasted from 1824 to 1828. In an 1853 book chapter on Melville Island, George Windsor Earl theorised that the island had been a source of slaves for Portuguese Timor and had been regularly raided by Portuguese slave traders, citing anecdotal evidence from King and Fort Dundas commandant John Campbell. Earl's theory has been repeated and expanded by a number of subsequent writers, sometimes in support of the unorthodox theory of the Portuguese discovery of Australia. However, no direct evidence for these practices exists in Portuguese sources or in Tiwi oral tradition. There was a Catholic mission on the island, on which Nova Peris' mother was raised after being taken from her mother. During World War II the small Snake Bay Patrol manned by local Tiwi people was established as part of the military forces deployed to protect the island against any Japanese landings.

The island lies in the eastern Timor Sea, approximately 60 km north of Darwin and west of the Cobourg Peninsula in Arnhem Land, in the Northern Territory. At 5786 km2, it is just outside the 100 largest islands in the world, but is the second biggest island of Australia, after Tasmania. Irrititu Island, 1.60 km2, lies 55 m south of Melville Island's southern tip. The islands have a tropical climate, specifically a tropical savanna climate (Aw.)

The largest settlement on the island is Milikapiti, with a population of 559. The second largest is Pirlangimpi (Pularumpi, formerly Garden Point), with a population of 440, located west of Milikapiti, on the west coast of Melville Island. About 30 more people live in five family outstations.

As part of the Tiwi Islands, Melville is under the jurisdiction of the Northern Territory, with the Tiwi Land Council as the regional authority.