Station (Australian agriculture)

Station is the term for a large Australian landholding used for livestock production. It corresponds to the North American term ranch or South American estancia. The owner of a station can be called a grazier (which corresponds to the North American term rancher) or Pastoralist.

Terminology

Originally station referred to the owner's house and the outbuildings of a pastoral property, but it now generally refers to the whole holding. Stations in Australia are, in most cases, on pastoral lease, and are known colloquially as sheep stations or cattle stations as most are stock specific, dependent upon the country and rainfall.

Sizes

Sheep and cattle stations can be thousands of square kilometres in area, with the nearest neighbour being hundreds of kilometres away. Anna Creek station in South Australia, Australia is the world's largest working cattle station. larger than Alexandria Station a cattle station spanning more than 1.8 million hectares in the Northern Territory, Australia and four times the size of America's biggest ranch, which is only 6,000 km².

Facilities

Because of the extended distances, there is a School of the Air so that children can attend classes from their homes, originally using pedal powered radios to communicate...
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