Karratha is a city in the Pilbara region of Western Australia, adjoining the port of Dampier. It is located in the traditional lands and waters of the Ngarluma people, for whom it has been Ngurra for tens of thousands of years. Located about 140 kilometres (87 mi) east-southeast of the site of three nuclear weapons tests by the British, it was established in 1968 to accommodate the processing and exportation workforce of the Hamersley Iron mining company and, in the 1980s, the petroleum and liquefied natural gas operations of the Woodside-operated North West Shelf Venture located on Murujuga. As of the 2021 census, Karratha had an urban population of 17,013. The city's name comes from the cattle station of the same name, which derives from a word in a local Aboriginal language meaning "good country" or "soft earth". More recently, Ngarluma people have indicated the name may actually relate to an early interpretation of Gardarra, stemming from the sacred site for the whale, located in the Karratha area, called Gardarrabuga. The city is the seat of government of the City of Karratha, a local government area covering the surrounding region.