The locality consists of land bounded to the east by the Adelaide River and in part to the north by the Clarence Strait. This locality is named after Koolpinyah Station, a pastoral lease established on land now partly included in the locality in 1908 by Evan and Oscar Herbert, the sons of Charles Edward Herbert, a judge, a politician and a former Government Resident of the Northern Territory. The name is ultimately derived from "Gulpinyah", the aboriginal name for a waterhole located near the station’s homestead. Its boundaries and name were gazetted on 4 April 2007.[7][1]
The 2016 Australian census which was conducted in August 2016 reports that Koolpinyah had no people living within its boundaries.[2]