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Highest-income suburbs in Western Australia

The suburbs in Western Australia with the highest median weekly household income at the 2021 Census, limited to those with at least 1,000 residents so the median reflects a meaningful sample. This is a factual ranking on a single ABS figure — not a measure of housing affordability, cost of living, or how good a place is to live or visit.

  1. 1

    Dalkeith, WA

    Population 4,398 · Median income $4,672/wk · SEIFA 1192

    Dalkeith is a leafy, affluent riverside suburb of Perth, set on a peninsula of the Swan River within the City of Nedlands and consistently ranked among the city's most expensive places to buy a home. It takes its name from Dalkeith Cottage, built in 1833 by Captain Adam Armstrong, an early settler who had once managed the Earl of Dalkeith's estate in Scotland and carried the name across to his new house. On a farm later owned by James Gallop stands Gallop House, a two-storey home raised around 1872 and now the oldest surviving private residence in the suburb; long neglected, it was restored in the 1960s. Overlooking the water is the former Sunset Hospital, opened in 1904 and closed in 1995, several of whose heritage-listed buildings still stand among the gardens.

  2. 2

    Peppermint Grove, WA

    Population 1,597 · Median income $4,565/wk · SEIFA 1161

    Peppermint Grove is a small, affluent suburb on the north bank of the Swan River at Freshwater Bay, in Perth's western suburbs. It takes its name from the Swan River peppermint trees that still line many of its streets, and has long been associated with some of Western Australia's oldest and wealthiest families. The whole suburb forms its own local government area, the Shire of Peppermint Grove, which is the smallest in the country. Its prosperity shows in a number of grand historic houses, among them The Cliffe and the Federation Queen Anne residence St Just. The streets carry the names of the suburb's first residents, who bought lots when the land was subdivided in 1891. Riverfront reserves and jetties line the Freshwater Bay shore, and the shared Grove Library serves the surrounding districts.

  3. 3

    Nickol, WA

    Population 4,938 · Median income $3,736/wk · SEIFA 1059

  4. 4

    City Beach, WA

    Population 6,805 · Median income $3,700/wk · SEIFA 1172

    City Beach is an affluent seaside suburb of Perth, set on the coast within the Town of Cambridge. Its origins lie in 1917, when the Perth Road Board bought the Lime Kilns Estate and set about laying out an up-to-date ocean town on fashionable garden-city lines, linking the growing city to the sea. The name caught on through the 1920s: an area developed by the City Council, it was thought a more dignified label than the earlier 'Ocean Beach'. The central neighbourhood was built just before the 1962 British Empire and Commonwealth Games as a village for the athletes competing at nearby Perry Lakes Stadium. Today the suburb is prized for its surf beach, the bushland reserve at Bold Park, and some of the most sought-after homes in the city.

  5. 5

    Dampier, WA

    Population 1,282 · Median income $3,664/wk · SEIFA 1085

  6. 6

    Floreat, WA

    Population 8,621 · Median income $3,570/wk · SEIFA 1170

    Floreat is a leafy residential suburb about eight kilometres west-north-west of central Perth, and the seat of the Town of Cambridge, whose offices and library sit beside the Floreat Forum shopping centre. The name is a small civic flourish: floreat is Latin for 'may it flourish' or 'prosper', the motto of the City of Perth, of which Floreat formed part when it was first laid out. The suburb has grown into something of a sporting hub — the WA Athletics Stadium opened here in 2009 and the Bendat Basketball Centre in 2020, both built after the old Perry Lakes stadiums were cleared — and the expansive Perry Lakes Reserve provides bush and open space on its doorstep. Quiet, well-served streets make it a comfortable inner-western address.

  7. 7

    Burns Beach, WA

    Population 4,071 · Median income $3,439/wk · SEIFA 1144

  8. 8

    Port Hedland, WA

    Population 4,081 · Median income $3,434/wk · SEIFA 1075

    Port Hedland is a major port town in the Pilbara region of north-western Western Australia, on the Indian Ocean coast about 1,320 kilometres north of Perth. It lies on the country of the Kariyarra and Nyamal peoples, who know the area as Marapikurrinya, a name variously linked to fresh-water soaks or to the hand-like shape of the tidal creeks. The harbour was named in 1863 after Peter Hedland, a mariner who recognised its potential, and the town was gazetted in 1896. From the 1960s the Pilbara iron-ore boom transformed Port Hedland, and its natural deep-water harbour now handles one of the largest tonnages of any port in the world. Iron-ore export, salt production, gas and other mining drive the economy.

  9. 9

    Swanbourne, WA

    Population 4,592 · Median income $3,418/wk · SEIFA 1158

    Swanbourne is an affluent coastal suburb in Perth's western suburbs, set between Lake Claremont and the Indian Ocean within the City of Nedlands. Known for its older Federation homes on quiet streets, it was first called Osborne and took its present name in 1921. The name honours Swanbourne House in Buckinghamshire, the family seat of Thomas Fremantle and his brother Charles, the naval officer after whom the port city of Fremantle was named. The suburb runs down to Swanbourne Beach and the dunes, with the fairways of the Cottesloe Golf Club along its northern edge. At Allen Park stands Tom Collins House, the relocated former home that honours the author who wrote under that name, now a writers' centre. Scotch College, a long-established boys' school, is one of the suburb's largest employers.

  10. 10

    Baynton (WA), WA

    Population 4,496 · Median income $3,390/wk · SEIFA 1085

  11. 11

    Wickham (WA), WA

    Population 2,022 · Median income $3,358/wk · SEIFA 998

  12. 12

    Cottesloe, WA

    Population 7,750 · Median income $3,351/wk · SEIFA 1160

    Cottesloe is a beachside suburb of Perth, about 11 km west-south-west of the city centre and forming its own local government area, the Town of Cottesloe. One of Perth's best-known and most affluent coastal suburbs, it is built around Cottesloe Beach, a wide stretch of sand backed by terraced lawns and Norfolk Island pines. The heritage-listed Indiana Tea House overlooks the water, and each year the beach hosts the open-air Sculpture by the Sea exhibition. Settled from 1870, the suburb is named after Thomas Fremantle, 1st Baron Cottesloe, a British politician and brother of the naval officer after whom nearby Fremantle is named.

  13. 13

    Coolbinia, WA

    Population 1,751 · Median income $3,229/wk · SEIFA 1139

  14. 14

    Paraburdoo, WA

    Population 1,324 · Median income $3,215/wk · SEIFA 964

  15. 15

    Millars Well, WA

    Population 2,104 · Median income $3,188/wk · SEIFA 1050

  16. 16

    Iluka (WA), WA

    Population 5,669 · Median income $3,144/wk · SEIFA 1124

  17. 17

    Tom Price, WA

    Population 2,910 · Median income $3,125/wk · SEIFA 1003

    Tom Price is an iron-ore mining town in the Pilbara region of Western Australia, lying roughly 1,470 kilometres from Perth and, at 747 metres above sea level, the highest town in the state. It was named after Thomas Moore Price, an American steel executive who was an early champion of opening the Pilbara to iron-ore mining, and was built in the 1960s to serve the nearby Mount Tom Price mine, now operated by Rio Tinto. The mine, a few kilometres from town, anchors an economy built almost entirely on iron ore, and the high wages it pays make Tom Price one of regional Australia's more affluent communities. It is a young, family-oriented town with sporting and recreational facilities typical of the resource industry.

  18. 18

    Somerville (WA), WA

    Population 4,165 · Median income $2,996/wk · SEIFA 1042

  19. 19

    Newman, WA

    Population 6,456 · Median income $2,972/wk · SEIFA 998

    Newman is an iron-ore town deep in the Pilbara region of Western Australia, roughly 1,190 kilometres north of Perth and just north of the Tropic of Capricorn. The surrounding country is associated with the Nyiyaparli and Martu peoples. The town was built from 1966 as a company town by Mount Newman Mining, a BHP venture, to house workers for the nearby Mount Whaleback iron-ore mine, and was named after the government surveyor Aubrey Woodward Newman, who died of typhoid in 1896. Iron ore dominates the local economy; ore from Mount Whaleback travels by the long Mount Newman railway to the coast at Port Hedland for export. Newman also serves as a service centre for the wider mining district.

  20. 20

    Brigadoon, WA

    Population 1,025 · Median income $2,901/wk · SEIFA 1112

  21. 21

    Mount Hawthorn, WA

    Population 8,183 · Median income $2,890/wk · SEIFA 1121

    Mount Hawthorn is a desirable inner-city suburb of Perth within the City of Vincent, popular with young families for its parks, cafes, bars and restaurants. The area was first marked out for development in 1887, and when a syndicate subdivided its land in 1903 one of the owners named his portion the Hawthorn Estate, after the Melbourne suburb where he had recently stayed. Mount Hawthorn Primary School, opened in 1906, is among the largest in the state and displays a mural honouring May O'Brien, Western Australia's first qualified female Aboriginal teacher. The suburb wears its First World War history with pride: Axford Park recalls the Victoria Cross winner Thomas Axford, while Anzac Cottage on Kalgoorlie Street was built by local tradespeople in a single day in 1916 to house a returned veteran.

  22. 22

    Lamington (WA), WA

    Population 2,036 · Median income $2,886/wk · SEIFA 1047

  23. 23

    Mount Claremont, WA

    Population 4,999 · Median income $2,835/wk · SEIFA 1143

  24. 24

    Nedlands, WA

    Population 10,561 · Median income $2,832/wk · SEIFA 1152

    Nedlands is a leafy western suburb of Perth, about 7 km from the city centre on the City of Nedlands. It is believed to take its name from Edward 'Ned' Bruce, whose father, Colonel John Bruce, bought land in the area in 1854; the property known as 'Ned's Land' was in time softened to Nedlands, and several streets still carry the Bruce family names. The suburb has a mixed character — student housing near the neighbouring University of Western Australia, gracious homes and a golf course to the south, and a strip of restaurants, shops and the Windsor Cinema along Stirling Highway. It is also a major medical precinct, taking in Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital, Perth Children's Hospital and the wider Queen Elizabeth II Medical Centre.

  25. 25

    Bulgarra, WA

    Population 2,990 · Median income $2,812/wk · SEIFA 1005

Rankings are editorial, based on the public data shown on each suburb page. See our methodology.