K’gari << GAH ree or GUR ee >>, also called Fraser Island, is the largest sand island in the world. It lies across Hervey Bay off the southeastern coast of Queensland, Australia, and shelters the entrance to the port of Maryborough. The island has an area of about 710 square miles (1,840 square kilometers). It has many freshwater lakes. The largest, Lake Boemingen, covers more than 500 acres (200 hectares). Part of the island is a forestry reserve with about 100 square miles (260 square kilometers) of commercial forests. Hundreds of thousands of tourists visit K’gari each year. 
The island is famous for its population of dingoes, wild dogs of Australia. Dingoes are a protected species in some parts of Australia, including K’gari. They rarely attack people. However, they have been known to seriously injure, or even kill, children. On K’gari, dingo attacks have become more frequent due to a rise in tourist activity. Visitors are prohibited from feeding the dingoes, because doing so disrupts the animals’ natural feeding habits and encourages them to approach people.
The Butchulla people, an Aboriginal group from the southeastern coast of Queensland, are the traditional inhabitants of K’gari. Archaeological evidence suggests that they lived on the island at least 5,000 years ago. K’gari means paradise in the Butchulla language. The British naval captain and navigator James Cook sighted the island in 1770. In the 1800’s, expanding European settlements greatly reduced the island’s Aboriginal population. Early European settlers knew K’gari as Great Sandy Island. The island was later renamed Fraser Island in honor of James Fraser, a British sea captain who became shipwrecked there in 1836.
Most of Fraser Island was declared a national park in 1989. In 1992, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) added Fraser Island to its World Heritage List, a registry of sites with great cultural or natural value. In 2021, UNESCO renamed the Fraser Island site as K’gari. And in 2023, the state government of Queensland officially changed the name of the island itself to K’gari.
In late 2020, a huge bushfire burned about 335 square miles (870 square kilometers) of the island. Heavy rains in December finally helped firefighters bring the blaze under control.
