The Burke Shire was declared on 31 January 1885. It is located in the north west of Queensland at the bottom of the Gulf of Carpentaria and covers an area of 41,802 square kilometres. There are two main communities: Burketown and Gregory. The balance of the Shire is pastoral properties. Within the Shire is the Doomadgee Aboriginal Shire Council.

Burketown on the Albert River, is the administrative centre of the Shire. It was named for Robert O'Hara Burke (many of the subsequent explores who passed through the area were actually searching for the Burke and Wills expedition) and was first settled in 1865 when it was known as Burke City. This was in keeping with the first colonists' dream of rapid transformation into a major trading depot with Asia.

Obviously there were Aboriginal and Macassan seafarers here originally but John Lort Stokes were the first European's eyes to look up and name the "Plains of Promise".

His report of the fertility of these vast black soil plans fringing the northern rivers was so enthusiastic that settlers, cattleman, adventurers and prospectors were soon flocking north to claim them.

Ludweig Leichhardt followed four years after Stokes and confirmed the latter's opinion of a fertile country suitable for grazing and all manner of crops. He explored and named Beames Brook.

In 1852 A.C Gregory had passed through the new township followed in succeeding years by William Landsborough, John Graham McDonald and Frederick Walker. Various landmarks, monuments and historical sites about the Shire and the north west commemorate the deeds of these explorers who surveyed and marked out large tracts of grazing country. One of the earliest of these was Floraville Station through which the Leichhardt River flows and on which Walker's monument stands.

The ill-fated ship, Firefly, which suffered cyclone damage and grounding on a reef on route to Burke City with Landsborough's expedition, was the first vessel to enter the Albert River. She stayed there too, rotting in the mud at Colonial flat near the Depot Camp, established by those parties seeking Burke and Wills and adjacent to the site of the Landsborough tree. Late the Boiling down plant and the Burketown Meat Works were also built there.

Many other ships must have sailed since in the tracks of the Firefly but none with more disastrous results than the Margaret and Mary in the late 1860s. They had made a brief stop-over in Java before setting off for the Gulf port and arrived with a dying crew and the Gulf fever (also known as Yellow Jack) which all but wiped out the population of Burketown and the surrounding stations. In all an estimated two thirds of the settlers died and an unknown number of the original Aboriginal inhabitants, the Ngorbarindji people. The survivors were moved to Sweers Island.

By the 1880s the plague was history and Burketown was both populous and thriving.

The four main industries within the Shire are beef cattle production, mining fishing and tourism.

Burke Shire is home to the Ganggalida, Gananggalinda, Mingin, and Kukatj people.