Uluṟu-Kata Tjuṯa National Park
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How it came to be
Uluru and Kata Tjuta rise more than 300 metres above the plains of central Australia. Archaeological finds nearby show that people settled the area more than 10,000 years ago. For the Aṉangu, its traditional owners, the place is bound up with Tjukurpa, the law and belief created by ancestral beings who shaped the land.
In 1872 the explorer Ernest Giles saw Kata Tjuta from near Kings Canyon and called it Mount Olga. On 19 July 1873 the surveyor William Gosse sighted Uluru and named it Ayers Rock after Sir Henry Ayers, Chief Secretary of South Australia. In 1958 the area was cut out of the Petermann Reserve as Ayers Rock–Mount Olga National Park.
On 26 October 1985 ownership was returned to Aboriginal people, who leased the park back to the national parks agency for 99 years. It was inscribed in 1987 and renominated under cultural criteria in 1994. The order of the dual names was reversed in 2002, and since 26 October 2019 climbing Uluru has been banned.
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