Carnamah, Western Australia
town in Western Australia

Carnamah is a town in the Mid West region of Western Australia, about 307 kilometres (191 mi) north of Perth along the Midlands Road. At the 2021 census, the population of the town was 407.
The town was gazetted in 1913, and is named after "Carnamah", a pastoral property established by Duncan Macpherson in this location in the late 1860s. A telegraph station was established here in 1873, and is referred to in 1876 by the explorer Ernest Giles. Giles spells it "Cornamah" in his book, but "Carnamah" on his map. Macpherson's property "Carnamah" derives its name from Carnamah Spring. The name is probably Aboriginal of unknown meaning, or possibly is a Gaelic word meaning "cairn of the cattle" or "cattle rocks".
The Midland Railway line was constructed through the area in 1894, and a siding was built close to the Macpherson's homestead. This in turn led to further settlement of the area.
The Carnamah Progress Association was formed in 1912, and the Carnamah State School was established, and in 1913 the townsite was declared.
The public source identifies “Carnamah, Western Australia” as town in Western Australia. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Carnamah, Western and Australia.
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The strongest evidence will usually combine a dated visual record with documents produced by the authority responsible for the place. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 7, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1749300. Authority coordinates are -29.735, 115.897. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2021, 1913, 1873 and 1876.
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This entry incorporates text from “Carnamah, Western Australia” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.