The western side of Tasmania is a rugged, mountainous and undeveloped terrain, known as the Wilderness, much of it now forming a large World Heritage site. The exception is the area around Queenstown and Zeehan, some 30 miles inland from the west coast, where vast deposits of copper ore, together with other ores, including gold, silver and lead, began to be exploited in the late 19th century. The extent of the workings formed one of the world's largest mining regions, which were served by railways to move the ores to processing plants or to the coast for export.
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