It is 21.4 kilometres (13.3 mi) south of the Sydney central business district, in the local government area of the Sutherland Shire along the east coast.

Kurnell is the place where Lieutenant James Cook and his crew landed on 29 April 1770, making first contact with the Gweagal people, the original inhabitants of the area, whilst navigating his way up the East Coast of Australia on Endeavour.

They began to clear land and dig wells, near modern-day La Perouse but a week later, Phillip decided to abandon the site and moved north to Sydney Cove at Port Jackson.

Cook's landing place is located on the north-eastern part of the national park, just near Silver Beach.

The first land grant of 700 acres (283 ha) was made in 1815, to Captain James Birnie, who established Alpha Farm.

His father purchased Alpha Farm from Birnie and by 1842 the Connell family's estate was over one thousand acres (4 km2) in size.

In 1860, Alpha Farm was sold to Thomas Holt (1811–88), who owned most of the land that stretched from Sutherland to Cronulla.

Before the 1920s, Kurnell was used by fishermen as schools of several varieties of fish inhabited the Botany Bay foreshore and the open sea.

[6][8] It is possibly a corruption of a Dharug term "cunthal", "kundle" or "koondool", perhaps meaning "place of or where the wild carrot grows".

[1] The northern part of the peninsula is a historic site known as Captain Cooks Landing Place with a number of memorials located here: The Discovery Centre provides information and displays relics from the early days in Kurnell's history.

The Cronulla sand dunes formed part of the location for the films Forty Thousand Horsemen, directed by Charles Chauvel in 1940 and Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome.

Kurnell is dominated by an industrial area, which once included the Caltex Oil Refinery which is now closed.

The Kurnell Desalination Plant, opened in 2010, now provides much of the rest of Sydney with an alternative water supply.

[13] It has been criticised on environmental grounds (greenhouse gases and impact of large amounts of deoxygenated brine), and was shelved, but was resumed after the March 2007 NSW state elections.