Borroloola is a township on the Gulf of Carpentaria in the Northern Territory. Approximately 990kms from Darwin it is classified by the federal government as isolated and very remote. The townsite itself, including the 5 town camps, has a population of 903 (ABS 2006) and forms part of the Roper Gulf Shire. 80% of the population in the town is indigenous. The town is a service centre for the pastoral and mining industries as well as providing medical, educational and law enforcement support. The Yanyuwa, Mara, Garawa and Gurdanji people all live around the town. The Yanyuwa and Mara are referred to as 'saltwater people' and are associated with the Sir Edward Pellew Islands and the lower reaches of the McArthur and Wearyan Rivers. The Gurdanji and Garawa people are classed as 'mainland people' and are associated with land to the south and east of the present township.

The present site of the town was first sighted by Ludwig Leichhardt who passed through the area in 1845 on his way from the Darling Downs, in Queensland, to Port Essington on Cobourg Peninsula. Leichhardt named the McArthur River although it is unclear whom he was honouring. Some sources suggest that the river was named after the Macarthurs of Camden in New South Wales, although there was a man named McArthur in Leichhardt's party and it is possible that the river was named after him.

In 1856, Augustus Gregory explored the Victoria River district and the area south-west of present-day Borroloola. Pastoralists followed in his wake and the construction of the Overland Telegraph Line (completed in 1872) saw the establishment of supply depots along Leichhardt's old route, focusing attention on the possibility of establishing townships along the Roper and McArthur Rivers.

The principal stock route for supplying the pastoral domains of the Northern Territory and Kimberley was opened up in 1872 when Dillon Cox contracted Wentworth Darcy Uhr to drove 400 head of cattle from Queensland to a telegraph supply depot on the Roper River. Upon his arrival, the depot was closing so he blazed his crucial trail by continuing on to what is now Darwin Harbour. By 1885, over 60,000 cattle had trodden this path.

The establishment of the stock route and the explorations for a prospective Queensland-Darwin-WA railway stimulated interest in developing townships on the McArthur and Roper Rivers. Thus, in early 1885, it was decided that town sites on both rivers should be surveyed with a view to establishing ports and supply bases. It was the survey team led by J. P. Hingston, which named the town Borroloola.

The town grew rapidly. By 1887, the year of its first race meeting, there was a police station, a court house, two hotels, a butcher's shop and a general store.

By the turn of the century Borroloola had gained a fierce reputation as a frontier town of total disrepute. The drovers moving cattle between the Kimberleys and Western Queensland stopped in the town and a trade in rum, smuggled from Thursday Island, was established. This illicit trade inevitably attracted the detritus of the South seas to the town. It became known as a centre for criminals, murderers and alcoholics - a reputation it only lost when the town became a virtual ghost town in the 1930s.