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Tennant Creek is located 500 kilometres North of Alice Springs and 1000 kilometres South of Darwin. It lies on the stretch of the Stuart Highway known as Paterson Street.

Approximately 3,500 people live in Tennant Creek which is a place shaped by Aboriginal culture, pastoralism and gold mining.

The town of Tennant Creek serves a huge, and sometimes forgotten, expanse of 240,000 square kms between the tropical 'Top End' and the arid 'Red Centre' known as the Barkly Tablelands. 

The Barkly Tablelands are approximately the same size as the U.K. or New Zealand, and consist largely of open grass plains with scattered cattle stations, mines and aboriginal communities.

Due to its central location, Tennant Creek contains more Government services and local business than might be expected of a town its size.

It is also a developing tourist centre and has numerous restaurants and tourist activities to complement its friendly and relaxed lifestyle. 

Aboriginal people have lived in this region for over 40,000 years. In particular Tennant Creek is the ancestral town of the Warumungu people. It is still an important social, cultural and business centre for many aboriginal people of various language groups.

European history of this area began in 1860 when explorer John McDouall Stuart passed this way on his unsuccessful first attempt to cross the continent from South to North. He named a creek to the North of town after John Tennant, a financier of his expedition. A repeater station was established in 1872 next to the creek, as part of the overland telegraph link, between the South and Eastern States and the rest of the world.

The town itself was settled 10 kms South of the creek in 1934, when Tennant Creek became the focus of Australia’s last significant gold rush. The reason the town was not located at the creek is explained by a colourful and largely fictitious story involving laziness and the cartload of beer.