Tjirrkarli is located in the “rirra” (plateau of ironstone pebbles) country, north west of Warburton. It lies between Lake Breaden and Lake Gillen. The community takes its name from a site nearby which is associated with a Dreaming story concerning native yams (tjirrkarli).

The community was established in the 1980s in the vicinity of a bore put down by Shell Oil. The company was searching for oil and constructed an extensive network of seismic lines, some of which are now used as main access roads to the community or as hunting tracks.

Twenty years had passed since traditional owners in Irrunytju and Tollu worked for rations and camped nearby to ensure no sites were damaged. By the 1980’s the Ngaanyatjarra Council had been formed to serve the political needs of the Ngaanyatjarra people. One of its first jobs was the negotiation of an agreement with Shell Oil to ensure that no sacred sites or sites of significance were disturbed or damaged during the exploration work in the Tjirrkarli area. Resources were provided by the company to allow a scouting team of traditional owners and anthropologists to work with the company surveyors as they cleared and flagged proposed seismic lines.

During this time a growing number of traditional owners who had lived most if not all of their lives in the goldfields region (their parents having left the Tjirrkarli region as early as the 1930-40s and gone to Mount Margaret Mission) began to slowly return. Some traditional owners who were living at Warburton had already left there and set up an outstation near Mt Samuel called Mangi, not far from Tjirrkarli. An accidental death and poor quality water from the Mangi bore precipitated a move further west to Tjirrkarli. Others upon hearing about the newly established community came from Cosmo Newberry and as far away as Wiluna. The community became incorporated and a member of the Ngaanyatjarra Council in 1987.