General descriptionThe continent of Australia (7.7 million square km), with the island state of Tasmania, is approximately equal in area to the United States (excluding Alaska and Hawaii). Mountain ranges run from north to south along the east coast, reaching their highest point in Mount Kosciusko (7,308 ft; 2,228 m). The western half of the continent is occupied by a desert plateau that rises into barren, rolling hills near the west coast. The Great Barrier Reef, extending about 1,245 mi (2,000 km), lies along the northeast coast. The island of Tasmania (26,178 sq mi; 67,800 sq km) is off the southeast coast. Australia is the flattest and second driest (after Antarctica) continent. Two-thirds of the land is desert. In some places it sometimes doesn’t rain for years! The driest and hottest place in Australia is the Simpson Desert. Summer temperatures here can be more than 50˚ C. The Simpson Desert is famous for its parallel sand dunes. They are the biggest in the world. The most famous dune, Big Red, is 40 metres high. Until 1901 Australia was a British colony. It is still a monarchy and Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain is also Queen of Australia. But now Australia is an independent state. Democracy is a characteristic feature of Australia’s political system. Symbolic executive power is vested in the British monarch, who is represented throughout Australia by the governor-general. The first inhabitants of Australia were the Aborigines, who migrated there at least 40,000 years ago from Southeast Asia. There may have been between a half million to a full million Aborigines at the time of European settlement; today about 350,000 live in Australia. Now the population of Australia is 20 million people. The national currency is Australian dollar. Dutch, Portuguese, and Spanish ships sighted Australia in the 17th century; the Dutch landed at the Gulf of Carpentaria in 1606. In 1616 the territory became known as New Holland. The British arrived in 1688, but it was not until Captain James Cook’s voyage in 1770 that Great Britain claimed possession of the vast island, calling it New South Wales. A British penal colony was set up at Port Jackson (what is now Sydney) in 1788, and about 161,000 transported English convicts were settled there until the system was suspended in 1839. Free settlers and former prisoners established six colonies: New South Wales (1786), Tasmania (then Van Diemen’s Land) (1825), Western Australia (1829), South Australia (1834), Victoria (1851), and Queensland (1859). Various gold rushes attracted settlers, as did the mining of other minerals. Sheep farming and grain soon grew into important economic enterprises. The six colonies became states and in 1901 federated into the Commonwealth of Australia with a constitution that incorporated British parliamentary and U.S. federal traditions. Australia became known for its liberal legislation: free compulsory education, protected trade unionism, the secret ballot, women’s suffrage, maternity allowances, and sickness and old-age pensions.
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