Uluru/Ayers Rock
Uluru, also known as Ayers Rock, is a prominent sandstone monolith located in the Northern Territory of Australia, recognized for its cultural and geological significance. The rock, which rises about 1,142 feet (348 meters) and measures approximately 2.2 miles (3.6 kilometers) in length, has been shaped by millions of years of geological processes. For the Anangu people, the traditional custodians of the land, Uluru is a sacred site imbued with deep spiritual meaning, believed to have been created by ancestral spirits during a mythical time known as Dreamtime.
The rock was named Ayers Rock in the late 19th century by British surveyor William Gosse, honoring a local politician, but was officially reverted to its Indigenous name, Uluru, in 1993. While tourism began in the late 1930s, it significantly increased following the establishment of the Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park, which became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987. In recent years, the Anangu have emphasized the importance of respecting their cultural beliefs, leading to a ban on climbing Uluru that was implemented in October 2019. Currently, the site attracts over 250,000 visitors annually, offering them an opportunity to appreciate its natural beauty and cultural heritage.
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Uluru/Ayers Rock
Uluru, with an additional spelling of Uluṟu, is a large sandstone rock formation located in Australia’s remote Northern Territory. It is also one of the nation’s most iconic natural landmarks. The geological process that produced Uluru began hundreds of millions of years ago, about the time the Australian continent was being formed. To the Aboriginal people of the region, Uluru was created by their ancestral spirits and is considered a sacred site. In the late nineteenth century, a British-born surveyor explored the formation and named it Ayers Rock after an Australian politician. Ayers Rock remained the formation’s official name for more than a century. In 1993, the Australian government formally changed the rock’s title back to Uluru, its traditional Aboriginal name.
Background
About 500 to 600 million years ago, geological processes pushed large rocky sections of Earth’s crust into one another to form the continent that would become Australia. The process also built several large mountain ranges in the area. These ranges were comparable in size to the modern Alps in Europe or the Himalayas in Asia. At that time in Earth’s history, plant and animal life was very primitive and confined to the oceans. Plants would not establish themselves on land for millions of years. With no plant cover to protect the surface rock and soil from the elements, early mountain ranges eroded very quickly.
About 500 million years ago, the area of central Australia was covered by water and became an inland sea. The remnants of the mountain ranges were buried under layers of sand, mud, and other sediment. Pressure slowly condensed this sediment into sandstone rock. About 300 to 400 million years ago, the region underwent another period of mountain building, and the rock was raised above the sea level. This created the fractured and folded terrain of central Australia. The rock that would become Uluru was turned on its side about 90 degrees and pushed through the surface. After millions of years of erosion, the softer, sedimentary rock was slowly chipped away, while the harder, older rock that makes up Uluru emerged. As the iron-based minerals within the rock reacted with the oxygen in the air, Uluru took on its distinctive reddish color.
Overview
The Aboriginal population of Australia has lived on the continent for at least sixty thousand years. The Anangu people, whose homeland is the region around Uluru, believe the rock was created in a distant, mythical period known as dreamtime. The world of dreamtime was featureless until the spirit ancestors of the Anangu emerged. They were a group of ten spirit people who helped create Uluru. The southern part of the rock was made in a battle between the Liru, or poisonous snakes, and the Kuniya, carpet snakes, a type of Australian python. The northern face was created by the Mala, or hare people. Other parts of Uluru were made by the sand lizards, sleepy lizards, and a bird woman and her children. The Anangu and other Aboriginal people from the region consider Uluru to be a sacred rock and use it as a site for rituals and rock paintings. The Anangu named the rock Uluru, a proper name that also refers to the land around the formation. It carries no specific meaning in the Anangu language.
In 1770, British explorers landed on the eastern coast of Australia and claimed the land for Great Britain. The first British colonists to arrive were prisoners who landed in 1788, but soon, free settlers began arriving in large numbers. The British were still exploring the continent almost a century later when surveyor William Gosse became the first European to reach the rock in 1873. He named it Ayers Rock after Henry Ayers, the leader of South Australia’s territorial government at the time.
Uluru is located in the remote southwestern corner of Australia’s Northern Territory. It is about 248 miles (400 kilometers) from the geographic center of the continent. The nearest town with a population of more than one thousand people is Alice Springs, about 208 miles (335 kilometers) to the northeast. Uluru is about 2.2 miles (3.6 kilometers) long, 1.2 miles wide (1.9 kilometers), and 5.8 miles (9.4 kilometers) around its base. It rises about 1,142 feet (348 meters) high and extends for about 1.6 miles (2.5 kilometers) underground.
Tourists began visiting Uluru about 1938, but the journey to the site was often difficult and could take as long as twelve hours from Alice Springs. In 1958, the formation was included as part of Australia’s Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park. An airstrip was built near the park at about the same time. By the 1960s, road improvements shortened the trip from Alice Springs to Uluru to about 4.5 hours, and the number of visitors jumped to more than 23,000. In 1987, the national park was named a World Heritage Site by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
In 1985, the Australian government returned the land in the Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park to the Anangu, who then leased it back to the government for a period of ninety-nine years. Under the agreement, the Anangu own the land, and the Australian Parks and Wildlife Service manages the park. Eight years after the agreement, the government changed the official name of the rock formation to Uluru, although many people continued to refer to it as Ayers Rock.
In 2019, more than 400,000 people visited Uluru. However, post-COVID-19 pandemic, the tourism numbers struggled to rebound. Although climbing the rock was technically legal and marked trails led to the top of the formation, the local Aboriginal people requested visitors not climb Uluru out of respect for their beliefs. Despite this, thousands of people still climbed to the top each year. In 2017, the Parks and Wildlife Service voted to permanently ban climbing on Uluru. The ban took effect in October 2019.
Bibliography
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Hales, Holly. “Push to Reignite Uluru Tourism after Downturn.” National Indigenous Times, 11 June 2024, nit.com.au/11-06-2024/11910/push-to-reignite-uluru-tourism-after-downturn. Accessed 22 Jan. 2025.
"3 Things You Should Know About Uluru’s Aboriginal Name." Travel Outback Australia, traveloutbackaustralia.com/uluru-aboriginal-name.html. Accessed 22 Jan. 2025.
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