The Broken Hill Proprietary Company was founded on 16 July 1885 in the mining town of Silverton, New South Wales. By 2017, BHP was the world's largest mining company, based on market capitalisation, and was Melbourne's third-largest company by revenue.

BHP Billiton was formed in 2001 through the merger of the Australian Broken Hill Proprietary Company Limited (BHP) and the Anglo–Dutch Billiton plc trading on both the Australian and London Stock Exchanges as a dual-listed company.

In 2015, some BHP Billiton assets were demerged and rebranded as South32, while a scaled-down BHP Billiton became BHP. In 2018, BHP Billiton Limited and BHP Billiton plc became BHP Group Limited and BHP Group plc, respectively. In January 2022, BHP relinquished its London Stock Exchange listing, becoming a solely Australian Securities Exchange-listed company. As of 2022, BHP is the largest company in Australia, and the largest mining company in the world, both as measured by market capitalisation. In 2023, the company's position in the Forbes Global 2000 was 90th.