This article is about the peninsula in the Australian state of Queensland; not the Yorke Peninsula in South Australia, or Cape York, Greenland.
Cape York Peninsula is a large remote peninsula in the far north of Queensland, Australia. It is the largest unspoilt wilderness in eastern Australia and one of the last remaining wilderness areas on Earth. The area is mostly flat and about half is used for grazing cattle. Much of the wildlife is threatened by introduced species and weeds. However, the eucalyptus wooded savannah, tropical rainforests, and other types of habitat are now recognized as being globally important.
Geography and geology
The Cape York Peninsula region covers an area of about 137,000 km² north of 16°S latitude. From the tip of the peninsula, Cape York, it is about to New Guinea across the island and coral reefs of Torres Strait.
The west coast is bordered by the Gulf of Carpentaria and the east coast by the Coral Sea. There is no clear border to the south, but the boundary in the Cape York Peninsula Heritage Act 2007 of Queensland follows the 16°S latitude.
At the peninsula’s widest point, it is 430 km from the Bloomfield River, on the east coast, to the Aboriginal community of Kowanyama on the west coast. It is some 660 km from the southern border, to the tip of Cape York. The largest islands in the Torres Strait include Prince of Wales Island, Horn Island, Moa, and Badu Island.
Cape York is the northernmost point on the Australian continent. It was named by Lieutenant James Cook on 21 August, 1770, after Prince Edward, Duke of York and Albany. The Duke was a brother of King George III of the United Kingdom, and died from illness in 1767 when he was only 20 years old:
"The point of the Main, which forms one side of the Passage before mentioned, and which is the Northern Promontory of this Country, I have named York Cape, in honour of his late Royal Highness, the Duke of York."
The tropical landscapes are among the most stable in the world. There has been no tectonic activity for millions of years. The peninsula is an extremely eroded, almost level, low plain with mighty meandering rivers and vast floodplains. There are some very low hills, about 800m above sea level in the McIlwraith Range on the eastern side around Coen.
Part of Australia’s Great Dividing Range, the Peninsula Ridge, is like a backbone along the peninsula. This mountain range is made up of ancient (1,500 million year-old) Precambrian and Palaeozoic rocks. To the east and west of the Peninsula Ridge lie the Carpentaria and Laura Basins, themselves made up of ancient Mesozoic sediments. There are several important landforms on the peninsula: the large area of undisturbed sand dunes on the east coast around Shelburne Bay and Cape Bedford-Cape Flattery; the huge piles of black granite boulders at Black Mountain National Park and Cape Melville; and the limestone karsts around Palmerston in the south.
The soils are poor, even compared to other areas of Australia. They are ancient and weathered, not suitable for ploughing and do not respond to fertilizers. Because of the poor soil, the region is thinly settled. Attempts to grow commercial crops have usually failed.
The climate on Cape York Peninsula is tropical and monsoonal. The heavy monsoon season is from November to April, during which time the forest becomes almost inhabitable. The dry season is from May to October. The temperature is warm to hot, with a cooler climate in higher areas. The mean annual temperatures range from 18 °C at higher elevations to 27 °C on the lowlands in the drier southwest. Temperatures over 40 °C and below 5 °C are rare.
Annual rainfall is high, ranging from over 2000 mm. in the Iron Range and north of Weipa to about 700 mm. at the southern border. Most of this rain falls between November and April. Only on the eastern slopes of the Iron Range is the median rainfall between June and September above 5mm (0.2 inches). Between January and March, however, the median monthly rainfall ranges from about 170mm (6.5 inches) in the south to over 500mm (20 inches) in the north and on the Iron Range.
Rivers
The Peninsula Ridge forms the drainage divide between the Gulf of Carpentaria and the Coral Sea. To the west, large, winding river systems including the Mitchell, Coleman, Holroyd, Archer, Watson, Wenlock, Ducie and Jardine flow into the Gulf of Carpentaria. During the Dry season, those rivers become a series of waterholes and sandy beds. Yet, with the heavy rains in the Wet season, they become mighty waterways, spreading across huge floodplains and coastal wetlands and giving life to many freshwater and wetland species.