Borroloola (Garrwa: Burrulula) is a town in the Northern Territory of Australia. It is located on the McArthur River, about 50 km (31 mi) upstream from the Gulf of Carpentaria.

Borroloola lies on the traditional country of the Yanyuwa people, on the coastal plain between the Barkly Tablelands and the Gulf of Carpentaria. Rivers that run from the Tablelands escarpment to the Gulf regularly flood in the wet season, making travel on the unsealed section of Highway One along the coastal plain to Queensland impossible. The rivers of this region have carved spectacular gorges through sandstone deposits in their upper reaches. The rivers and coastal areas are host to barramundi, earning Borroloola a reputation among sports fisherman, and also to the deadly saltwater crocodile. The

Garrwa (also known as Garawa) is a language of the Gulf region, taking in the localities of Borroloola and Westmoreland. The Garrwa language region takes in the landscape of the Roper Gulf Regional Council and the Doomadgee Shire Council. The Garrwa name for the town is Burrulula.

The ‘Coast Track’ follows the path of cattle drovers of the late 19th century as they moved herds from north-west Queensland to stock the new stations of the Northern Territory and the Kimberley. The drovers, in turn, followed a well-worn Aboriginal path. Tony Roberts writes how the local tribes went from almost total isolation from European Australians in 1870, to a decimated collection of displaced and defeated groups, over a single decade. Entire tribes such as the Wilangarra, including women, children and babies were massacred, and most adult males were killed, by police and quasi-police groups, and by drovers and station workers involved in the cattle droves of that era.

Borroloola was declared a town on 10 September 1885. In the local Indigenous languages of Yanyuwa, Garrwa, Marra, Gudanji and Binbingka, Borroloola would be written as Burrulula. The name belongs to a small lagoon just to the east of the present day caravan park. The name originally Borrolooloo, translates borrow women,^[name of the lagoon and associated with the Hill Kangaroo. It was at this site that the Hill Kangaroo Ancestral Being (Nangurrbuwala) danced his ceremonies. The white-barked gum trees in the area are said to be his body decorations as they flew from his body as he danced. Other Indigenous names in the area of Borroloola are Wurrarawala (Trig Hill) this hill is associated with the backbone of the Hill Kangaroo Ancestor. Bunubunu (Rocky Creek), this creek is associated with a File Snake Ancestor. Warralungku (The McArthur River Crossing) and Mabunji, a set of specific rocks at the McArthur River Crossing that carries the imprint of the Hill Kangaroo’s tail and feet. The area of Borroloola belongs to members of the Rrumburriya clan.

A famous story about Borroloola concerns one (police) Corporal Power, who appealed to the Carnegie Trust for books to stock the town’s library. He succeeded beyond his wildest dreams when some 3,000 volumes arrived, the courthouse their only suitable repository. Bill Harney recounts how by 1923, when he was involuntarily detained there, it had fallen into decay: he found Sue‘s Mysteries of Paris in shards, Plutarch in the lavatory of the Macarthur Hotel, and a “splendid edition of Shakespeare” being used to light campfires. David Attenborough visited Borroloola in 1963 to film what became episode 2 of ‘Quest Under Capricorn’, the 8th and final series of the BBC‘s Zoo Quest expedition documentaries.^] He interviewed Irishman Jack Mulholland, then owner of the hotel. He described having joined the library having arrived at Borroloola one rainy season some years prior and read many books, including the complete set of works by W. W. Jacobs.

In 1977, the Yanyuwa people were the first to successfully lodge a claim under the new Federal Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976 over Borroloola and the Pellew Islands. The claim was finally resolved in 2015. A second land claim in 2002 saw the remaining islands in the area also handed back.

Yanyuwa man John Kundereri Moriarty, a recipient of the Order of Australia (AM) and a UNESCO Achievement Award, was born in Borroloola. Moriarty is a co-founder of the Moriarty Foundation, which works for the development of Aboriginal families and communities.