Long before colonisation, the Whadjuk Noongar people had cared for the land around the Derbarl Yerrigan (Swan River) for tens of thousands of years. Perth was founded as a British settlement in 1829 by Captain James Stirling, named after the Scottish city of the same name. The 1890s gold rushes in Kalgoorlie and Coolgardie brought sudden wealth and a population surge that transformed Perth from a sleepy outpost into Western Australia's economic capital.