Smithton

About Smithton

Smithton is a town on the far north-west coast of Tasmania, Australia, situated at the mouth of the Duck River on Duck Bay along the Bass Highway. Originally known as Duck River when first settled in 1856, the settlement was renamed Smithton in 1895 after Peter Smith, an Irish landowner who had been a constable and licensee of the Plough Inn at Stanley. Declared a town in 1905, Smithton became the administrative centre of the Circular Head municipality by the early 1920s. The town serves as a commercial hub for the surrounding dairy, beef, and timber industries, and is recognised as a gateway to the Tarkine Wilderness, one of the largest temperate rainforests in the Southern Hemisphere. Nearby landmarks include the Cape Grim Baseline Air Pollution Station, noted for measuring some of the cleanest air in the world.