Its traditional owners regained freehold title on 26 October 1985 and leased it straight back to the nation (1985)
The 'handback', to the Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara people
Geography · Physical geography
Uluru
handed back to its traditional owners in 1985; climbing banned in 2019
Sandstone inselberg in Australia's Northern Territory — the world's best-known monolith
A vast sandstone inselberg in the southern Northern Territory, rising 348 metres above the surrounding plain and about 9.4 kilometres around, with most of its bulk buried below the desert floor. It is sacred to the Anangu, the Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara traditional owners, who were granted freehold title in 1985 and immediately leased it back as a national park. The climb closed in 2019.
How to spot them
- ▸A single red sandstone dome in central Australia that appears to change colour at sunset
- ▸Quiz clue: 'Anangu', 'Kata Tjuta', 'inselberg', 'Ayers Rock', 'Tjukurpa', 'Yulara'
- ▸Shares its national park with a cluster of 36 domes 25 km to the west
- ▸Dual-named: an English explorer's name of 1873 alongside the Anangu one
Key facts
The climb up its flank was closed permanently on 26 October 2019, thirty-four years to the day after the handback (2019)
The traditional owners had asked visitors not to climb for decades
William Gosse named it in 1873 for the Chief Secretary of South Australia (1873)
Sir Henry Ayers; the name Ayers Rock stood alone until dual naming in 1993
It rises 348 metres above the plain and measures about 9.4 kilometres around its base
Most of the arkose sandstone mass lies buried beneath the desert
Twenty-five kilometres to the west stand 36 sister domes, the highest of them taller than it is
Kata Tjuta, the Olgas; Mount Olga reaches 546 m above the plain
A baby's disappearance from a campsite at its base in 1980 led to one of Australia's most notorious trials (1980)
The death of Azaria Chamberlain; a 2012 inquest finally accepted a dingo was responsible
In 1994 its national park was relisted for cultural as well as natural value, recognising a living Indigenous law (1994)
Tjukurpa — Anangu law, knowledge and belief
Quick-fire facts
- •Height 348 m above the plain (863 m above sea level); circumference about 9.4 km
- •Composed of arkose, a coarse feldspar-rich sandstone that weathers to a rusty red
- •In Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park, about 450 km by road south-west of Alice Springs
- •The traditional owners are the Anangu; their law and belief system is Tjukurpa
- •Named Ayers Rock by the surveyor William Gosse in 1873; dual-named Ayers Rock / Uluru in 1993 and Uluru / Ayers Rock in 2002
- •World Heritage listed for natural values in 1987 and for cultural values in 1994
- •Kata Tjuta, 25 km west, comprises 36 domes; the tallest, Mount Olga, is 546 m above the plain
- •Visitors stay at Yulara, the resort township just outside the park
- •Strictly it is an inselberg rather than a free-standing monolith — it is the exposed tip of a much larger buried rock slab
Drill it — 8 cards
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Sources
- UNESCO World Heritage Centre — Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park
- Parks Australia — Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park