Lake Cargelligo

Lake Cargelligo is a town in the Central West region of New South Wales, Australia, on Lake Cargelligo.

Lake Cargelligo is a town in the Central West region of New South Wales, Australia, on Lake Cargelligo. It is in Lachlan Shire. At the 2016 census, Lake Cargelligo had a population of 1,479 people. Its name is said to be a corruption of the Aboriginal word kartjellakoo meaning 'he had a coolamon'. Alternatively it is derived from Wiradhuri and Ngiyambaa "gajal" for water container with suffix "lugu" for "her" or "his". In 2016, it had an indigenous population of 239 (16.2%) and other Australian-born population of 1,186 (together 80.4% of the population).

The area now known as Lake Cargelligo lies within the traditional lands of the Wiradjuri people.The explorers, John Oxley and George Evans, followed the Lachlan River down to Lake Cargelligo in 1817.

Lake Cargelligo was known as Cudgelligo (or sometimes Cudgellico) in the 1800s and was officially changed when the railway arrived in 1917.

After colonial settlement, the land was taken over by settlers and the local Aboriginal population was removed from their traditional country and consolidated at other locations, under the control of the Aboriginal Protection Board. In 1907, official records showed no Aboriginal people as living at 'Cudgellico Lake'. In 1949, a population of Wiradjuri, together with Ngiyampaa and Paakantyi people—from traditional lands west of the Wiradjuri lands—totalling 240 people was relocated from Menindee to a camp at Murrin Bridge about 15km from Lake Cargelligo.