Cobar Shire

Cobar – The Cobar Shire is a truly remarkable part of the world in the accessible NSW outback. Cobar is a bustling and prosperous town with a mixture of old and modern buildings, which chronicle Cobar’s past 130 years. Cobar’s economy has historically been based on mining and grazing sheep for wool.

Cobar Shire is situated in the centre of New South Wales at the crossroads of the Barrier Highway and the Kidman Way and has excellent road, rail and air links to most of Australia’s capital cities.  With an area of 44,065 square kilometres, the shire is almost the same size as the whole of Tasmania. It is home to 4,710 residents of whom 12.9% identified of being of Aboriginal descent. The main township is Cobar, with small villages at Euabalong and Euabalong West, Murrin Bridge, Mount Hope and Nymagee.

The shire’s prosperity is built around the thriving mining-copper, lead, zinc, gold-and pastoral industries, which are strongly supported by a wide range of attractions and activities, making it a major tourist destination. The Great Cobar Heritage Centre, with its museum and information facilities, provides visitors with an insight to the history of this interesting region where mining first commenced in the 1870s. Over the years the fluctuating fortunes of the mines have had a similar variable impact on the population of the town, which today is half the number of those who lived here in the early 1900s.

For further information visit to Cobar Shire website http://www.cobar.nsw.gov.au/

Your Outback Arts representative – Angela Shepherd and Cobar Arts Council Representative Samara Garnham