Cooloongup history: a salt lake, an 1843 survey and a 1974 suburb name

Cooloongup is named after a salt lake in the district. The lake was on survey records more than 130 years before the suburb was named in 1974.

How Cooloongup got its name

Landgate records that the suburb is named after Lake Cooloongup, a salt lake in the district, recorded by Surveyor A C Gregory in 1843. The name is Aboriginal, and Landgate says its meaning is not known. The suburb was named on 5 April 1974.

Before the suburb

The Rockingham area is the country of the Whadjuk and Binjareb Nyoongar peoples, who are acknowledged in the City of Rockingham’s heritage material. The Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions acknowledges the Whadjuk people as the Traditional Owners of Rockingham Lakes Regional Park, which includes Lake Cooloongup.

The district takes its English name from the ship Rockingham, the last of three ships that brought Thomas Peel’s settlers, which ran aground on the beach in 1830. J S Roe identified a townsite in 1846 and Alfred Hillman surveyed it in 1847.

How it grew

Local government began when the Rockingham Road Board was formed on 21 May 1897. It became the Shire of Rockingham on 1 July 1961 and was declared a city on 12 November 1988.

Cooloongup was named on the same day in 1974 as neighbouring Warnbro. The 2021 Census counted 6,696 residents, most living in detached houses.

Places that tell the story

Lake Cooloongup is the clearest link to the name. It now sits within Rockingham Lakes Regional Park, a chain of lakes, swamps and bushland that also takes in Lake Walyungup and Lake Richmond, where a community of thrombolites lives.

Rockingham General Hospital is at 39 Elanora Drive, and Rockingham Golf Club is also on Elanora Drive, set in bushland. East Waikiki Primary School on Gibb Road carries the name of the neighbouring suburb although it is inside Cooloongup.

Cooloongup today

Cooloongup is a suburb of houses with two government primary schools. The lake that gave the suburb its name is protected as part of the regional park.

More about Cooloongup

For what Cooloongup is like to live in now, read our Cooloongup suburb profile. If you own a property in Cooloongup and are thinking about selling, start with buyers for your property.

Sources

• Landgate: Perth and surrounds suburb names (archived 2022)
• City of Rockingham: City profile and suburb names
• City of Rockingham: Heritage in the City
• Parks and Wildlife Service: Rockingham Lakes Regional Park
• ABS 2021 Census QuickStats: Cooloongup

Top image: The Lake Cooloongup area, August 2019. Photo: Calistemon, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Dates and names are drawn from the sources above. Where sources differ, we have said so or given an approximate date.

By Key Performance Real Estate, 338 Beaufort Street, Perth