Portal:Australia
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Introduction
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Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and numerous smaller islands. Australia has a total area of 7,688,287 km2 (2,968,464 sq mi), making it the sixth-largest country in the world and the largest country by area in Oceania. It is the world's oldest, flattest, and driest inhabited continent, with some of the least fertile soils. It is a megadiverse country, and its size gives it a wide variety of landscapes and climates including deserts in the interior and tropical rainforests along the coast.
The ancestors of Aboriginal Australians began arriving from south-east Asia 50,000 to 65,000 years ago, during the last glacial period. By the time of British settlement, Aboriginal Australians spoke 250 distinct languages and had the oldest living culture in the world. Australia's written history commenced with Dutch exploration of most of the coastline in the 17th-century. British colonisation began in 1788 with the establishment of the penal colony of New South Wales. By the mid-19th century, most of the continent had been explored by European settlers and five additional self-governing British colonies were established, each gaining responsible government by 1890. The colonies federated in 1901, forming the Commonwealth of Australia. This continued a process of increasing autonomy from the United Kingdom, highlighted by the Statute of Westminster Adoption Act 1942, and culminating in the Australia Acts of 1986.
Australia is a federal parliamentary democracy and constitutional monarchy comprising six states and ten territories. Its population of more than 28 million is highly urbanised and heavily concentrated on the eastern seaboard. Canberra is the nation's capital, while its most populous cities are Sydney and Melbourne, both with a population of more than 5 million. Australia's culture is diverse, and the country has one of the highest foreign-born populations in the world. It has a highly developed market economy and one of the highest per capita incomes globally. Its abundant natural resources and well-developed international trade relations are crucial to the country's economy. It ranks highly for quality of life, health, education, economic freedom, civil liberties and political rights.
Featured article -
Featured articles are displayed here, which represent some of the best content on English Wikipedia.
From 31 May to 8 June 1942, during World War II, Imperial Japanese Navy submarines made a series of attacks on the Australian cities of Sydney and Newcastle. On the night of 31 May – 1 June, three Ko-hyoteki-class midget submarines, (M-14, M-21 and M-24) each with a two-member crew, entered Sydney Harbour, avoided the partially constructed Sydney Harbour anti-submarine boom net, and attempted to sink Allied warships. Two of the midget submarines were detected and attacked before they could engage any Allied vessels. The crew of M-14 scuttled their submarine, whilst M-21 was successfully attacked and sunk. The crew of M-21 killed themselves. These submarines were later recovered by the Allies. The third submarine attempted to torpedo the heavy cruiser USS Chicago, but instead sank the converted ferry HMAS Kuttabul, killing 21 sailors. This midget submarine's fate was unknown until 2006, when amateur scuba divers discovered the wreck off Sydney's northern beaches. (Full article...)
Selected biography -
Yagan (/ˈjeɪɡən/; c. 1795 – 11 July 1833) was an Aboriginal Australian warrior from the Noongar people. Yagan was pursued by the local authorities after he killed Erin Entwhistle, a servant of farmer Archibald Butler. It was an act of retaliation after Thomas Smedley, another of Butler's servants, shot at a group of Noongar people stealing potatoes and fowls, killing one of them. The government offered a bounty for Yagan's capture, dead or alive, and a young settler, William Keats, shot and killed him. He is considered a legendary figure by the Noongar. (Full article...)
Did you know (auto-generated) -
- ... that Australian gamer Zer0 led his team to an Apex Legends Global Series championship with a substitution teammate to whom he had never spoken before?
- ... that Australian train driver Bill Morrow received the Soviet Union's Lenin Peace Prize alongside Fidel Castro?
- ... that audience members interrogated suspects in an Australian Cluedo game show based on the board game?
- ... that Australian official Jack Emanuel was awarded the George Cross in 1971 after being stabbed to death whilst trying to resolve a land dispute with the Tolai people of New Guinea?
- ... that Monique Ryan ran for election to the Parliament of Australia after seeing an advertisement in the newspaper calling for an independent candidate?
- ... that Jack Critchley, state parliamentarian then senator for South Australia, was invalided home from the Western Front with "wry neck"?
- ... that Australiformis semoni is a parasite that infests marsupials in Australia and New Guinea and whose infestation could cause debilitating ulcerative granulomatous gastritis?
- ... that Marie Breen retired from the Australian Senate to care for her husband, who had been badly injured in a car accident?
In the news
- 30 September 2024 – Australia–Tuvalu relations, Climate change in Tuvalu
- Tuvalu's climate minister denounces the Australian Labor government's decision to expand three coal mines as an existential threat to the nation, due to the role of the mines in causing rising sea levels that have forced mass displacement across Tuvalu's low-lying islands. (The Guardian)
- 28 September 2024 – 2024 AFL premiership season
- The Brisbane Lions defeat the Sydney Swans 120–60 in the Australian Football League Grand Final to win their fourth AFL premiership title. (The Guardian Australia)
- 26 September 2024 – Israel–Hezbollah conflict
- Israel rejects proposals from the United States, Australia, and the European Union to initiate a temporary 21-day ceasefire with Hezbollah. (Reuters) (Reuters 2)
- 23 September 2024 – 2024 AFL season
- In Australian football, Patrick Cripps wins his second Brownlow Medal with 45 votes, the most votes since the current voting system was introduced, and also becomes the seventeenth player to win the award more than once. (ABC News Australia)
Selected pictures -
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View of Limestone cliffs and beach looking towards Point Avoid in Coffin Bay National Park circa March 2006.
Coffin Bay is a national park in on the Eyre Peninsula of South Australia, 301 kilometres west of Adelaide, and 46 kilometres west of Port Lincoln. The township of Coffin Bay is near the entrance to the National Park. The National Park features a long peninsula with a sheltered bay, coastal dunes, swamps and a spectacular coastline of islands, reefs, limestone cliffs and white surf beaches.
Photo credit: Takver -
Photo credit: Frank HurleyA group of Australian infantry wearing Small Box Respirators (SBRs) at the Third Battle of Ypres in September 1917. After the introduction of poison gas in World War I, countermeasures were developed. SBRs represented the pinnacle of gas mask development during the war, a mouthpiece connected via a hose to a box filter (hanging around the wearer's neck in this picture), which in turn contained granules of chemicals that neutralised the gas. The SBR was the prized possession of the ordinary infantryman; when the British were forced to retreat during the German Spring Offensive of 1918, it was found that while some troops had discarded their rifles, hardly any had left behind their respirators. -
Photo credit: Fir0002The Common bluetail (Ischnura heterosticta) is a small Australian damselfly of the family Coenagrionidae. Most males have blue eyes, blue thorax and a blue ringed tail. The females are green or light brown. -
Photo: JJ HarrisonThe Dusky Robin (Melanodryas vittata) is a small passerine bird native to Tasmania. A member of the Australian Robin family, it is not related to European or American Robins. It is a brown-plumaged bird of open woodland, measuring 16–17 cm (6.3–6.7 in) in length. -
Alpine Range scenery as viewed just past Mt Hotham.
The Australian Alps are the highest mountain ranges of mainland Australia. They are located in south-eastern Australia, straddling far southern New South Wales and eastern Victoria. The Alps contain the Australian mainland's only peaks exceeding 2,000 metres AHD and it is only here that snow occurs regularly.
Photo credit: Fir0002 -
The Australian War Memorial is the national memorial in Australia for the members of all its armed forces and supporting organisations who have died in wars. The memorial includes an extensive national military museum and is located in the capital Canberra. It is the northern terminus of the city's ceremonial land axis, which stretches from Parliament House on Capital Hill along a line passing through the summit of the cone-shaped Mt Ainslie to the northeast.
Photo credit: Fir0002 -
Photo credit: Noodle snacksThe Tasmanian Native-hen (Gallinula mortierii) is a flightless rail between 43 to 51 cm (17 to 20 in) in length, one of twelve species of birds endemic to the Australian island of Tasmania. Although flightless, it is capable of running quickly and has been recorded running at speeds up to 30 miles per hour (48 km/h). -
The Royal Exhibition Building, showing the fountain on the southern or Carlton Gardens side of the building.
The Royal Exhibition Building is located in Victorian capital of Melbourne. Situated in the Carlton Gardens, at the north-eastern edge of the central business district, it was completed in 1880 for the Melbourne International Exhibition. It was also the site of the inauguration of the Commonwealth of Australia with the opening of the first Parliament of Australia.
Photo credit: Diliff -
Photo credit: Fir0002Two whole Cripps Pink apples and a cross-section of a third. More commonly known by the trademarked name "Pink Lady", this apple cultivar was originally bred by John Cripps by crossing the Australian apple Lady Williams with a Golden Delicious. The apple shape is ellipsoid, it has a distinctive pink hue mixed with a green "background," and taste is tart. -
Photo: Steven Rasmussen; edit: KeraunoscopiaAustralian artistic gymnast Lauren Mitchell (b. 1991) performing a layout step-out on the balance beam during the 41st World Artistic Gymnastics Championships in London, United Kingdom, on 14 October 2009; at the Championships, Mitchell won two silver medals, one for the balance beam and another for floor exercises. Since her first medal in 2007, Mitchell has placed in the World Championships, World Cup, and Commonwealth Games, and competed in two Olympic Games. -
Lake Hart in South Australia.
The Lake Eyre Basin has a drainage basin that covers one-sixth of all Australia. It is one of the largest internal drainage systems in the world, and covers roughly 1.2 million square kilometres, including much of inland Queensland, large portions of South Australia and the Northern Territory, and a part of western New South Wales.
Photo credit: User:Tannin -
Photo credit: LiquidGhoulThe head of a Coastal Carpet Python, the largest subspecies of Morelia spilota, a non-venomous Australian python, showing its forked tongue, a feature common to many reptiles, who smell using the tip of their tongue. Having a forked tongue allows them to tell which direction a smell is coming from. -
Photo credit: John O'NeillA Common Grass Blue (Zizina labradus), a small Australian butterfly. This specimen, perched on a rose, is approximately 10 millimetres (0.4 in) in size. Females generally have a larger wingspan compared to males (23 and 20 mm or 0.9 and 0.8 in respectively). -
Photo credit: Fir0002The Cairns Birdwing (Ornithoptera euphorion) is a birdwing butterfly of the Papilionidae family. It is Australia's largest butterfly, and is native to the tropical north of Queensland. -
Photo credit: Noodle snacksThe 26-metre (85 ft) radio telescope at Mount Pleasant Radio Observatory, located 20 kilometres (12 mi) east of Hobart, Tasmania, is the southernmost antenna used in Australia's Very Long Baseline Interferometry network. The facility is owned and operated by the University of Tasmania. -
Photo: John O'NeillAn officer of the Victoria Police, the primary law enforcement agency of the Australian state of Victoria. The agency was founded in 1835 from an existing colonial police force of 875 men. As of 2011, the Victoria Police has over 12,190 sworn members, and over 2,900 civilian staff across 393 police stations. -
Photo credit: James Francis HurleySoldiers of an Australian 4th Division field artillery brigade on a duckboard track passing through Chateau Wood, near Hooge in the Ypres salient, October 29, 1917. The photo was taken in the vicinity of the Battle of Passchendaele, also known as the Third Battle of Ypres, which was one of the major battles of World War I. -
North view of the Summmit from the Fire Tower.
Mount Lofty at 727 metres is the highest point in the Mount Lofty Ranges east of Adelaide in South Australia. It was first climbed by a European when explorer Collet Barker climbed it in April 1831, almost seven years before Adelaide was settled. It had been named by Matthew Flinders on his circumnavigation of Australia in 1802.
Photo credit: Mel Mazzone -
Photo credit: Fir0002The Ulysses Butterfly (Papilio ulysses) is a large Australian swallowtail with a wingspan of about 14 cm (5.5 in). The top of the butterfly’s wings are an iridescent electric blue; the underside is a more subdued black and brown coloration. When the butterfly is perched the intense blue of its wings is hidden (as seen here), helping it to blend in with its surroundings. -
Photo credit: ChmouelThe Sydney Opera House in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
Situated on Bennelong Point at Sydney Harbour, the Sydney Opera House is one of the most distinctive and famous 20th-century buildings, and one of the most famous performing arts venues in the world. -
Photo: JJ HarrisonThe Tasmanian Darner (Austroaeschna tasmanica) is an Australian species of dragonfly in the Aeshnidae family, which includes some of the largest of the dragonflies on the planet. Also referred to as "hawkers", the name "darner" derives from the fact that the female abdomens look like a sewing needle, as they cut into plant stem when they lay their eggs through the ovipositor. -
The Petrov Affair was a Cold War spy drama in Australia in April 1954, involving the defection of Vladimir Petrov, third secretary in the Soviet embassy in Canberra. Petrov's wife, Evdokia Petrova, a Russian spy, came to the centre of the affair when she was seized by Australian Security Intelligence Organisation agents from MVD agents who were escorting her from the country. Images of Petrova as she was taken by ASIO agents and made her decision to defect became iconic in Australia in the 1950s.
Photo credit: National Archives of Australia
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On this day
- 1800 – First copper coins circulated in New South Wales.
- 1813 – George William Evans, assistant surveyor, sets out to confirm the earlier discoveries of Blaxland, Lawson and Wentworth.
- 1834 – The first permanent European settlement on the north coast of Bass Strait is established at Portland.
- 1937 – Hubert Opperman completes an epic bicycle ride from Fremantle, Western Australia to Sydney, taking 13 days, 10 hours and 11 minutes.
- 1941 – The cruiser HMAS Sydney is involved in a mutually destructive battle with the German ship Kormoran off Western Australia. All 645 aboard Sydney die.
- 1996 – US President Bill Clinton makes a visit to Australia in which he addresses both Houses of Parliament.
- 1996 – Martin Bryant is sentenced to 35 consecutive sentences of life imprisonment plus 1035 years without parole for the Port Arthur massacre.
General images
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The Matildas, Australia's national women's football team (from Culture of Australia) -
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House in Killara, New South Wales (from Culture of Australia) -
A group of Australian men wearing speedos (from Culture of Australia) -
The Royal Exhibition Building, Melbourne (from Culture of Australia) -
Portrait of Madame Melba by Rupert Bunny (from Culture of Australia) -
The initial human settlement of Oceania is estimated to have been between 60,000 and 40,000 years ago. Archaeogenetic results indicate a colonisation of southern Sahul (Australia) before 37,000 years ago and an incubation period in northern Sahul (Papua New Guinea), followed by westward expansions within Australia after about 28,000 years ago. (from Aboriginal Australians) -
Corroboree at Newcastle by convict artist Joseph Lycett, ca. 1818. Aboriginal Australian religious practices associated with the Dreamtime have been practised for tens of thousands of years. (from Culture of Australia) -
Noongar traditional dancers in Perth (from Aboriginal Australians) -
Governor Arthur Phillip hoists the British flag over the new colony at Sydney Cove in 1788 (from Culture of Australia) -
Founded in 1993, Sydney's Tropfest is the world's largest short film festival. (from Culture of Australia) -
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The Bulletin, founded by J. F. Archibald (left), nurtured bush poets such as Henry Lawson (right). (from Culture of Australia) -
Convict architecture at Port Arthur, Tasmania (from Culture of Australia) -
Interior of St Mary's Cathedral, Sydney (from Culture of Australia) -
Anzac Day dawn services are held throughout Australia every April. (from Culture of Australia) -
An Aboriginal encampment near the Adelaide foothills in an 1854 painting by Alexander Schramm (from Aboriginal Australians) -
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Kylie Minogue, one of Australia's most successful pop musicians (from Culture of Australia) -
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William Wentworth (1790–1872) was among the first to articulate a vision of Australian nationhood. (from Culture of Australia) -
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A billycan used for heating water (from Culture of Australia) -
Historical image of Aboriginal Australian women and children, Maloga, New South Wales around 1900 (in European dress) (from Aboriginal Australians) -
An Eastern Arrernte man of the Arltunga district, Northern Territory, in 1923. His hut is decked with porcupine grass. (from Aboriginal Australians) -
Golden Wattle, Australia's floral emblem and the source of Australia's national colours, green and gold (from Culture of Australia) -
Donald Bradman is often cited as statistically the greatest sportsman of any major sport. (from Culture of Australia) -
The Wiggles performing in the United States in 2007 (from Culture of Australia) -
Didgeridoo performers (from Culture of Australia) -
A typical Queenslander house in Brisbane (from Culture of Australia) -
St Mary Mackillop established an extensive network of schools and is Australia's first canonised saint of the Catholic Church. (from Culture of Australia) -
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A commemorative statue of John Simpson Kirkpatrick, a famous stretcher bearer who was killed in the Gallipoli Campaign. (from Culture of Australia) -
Parliament House, Canberra (from Culture of Australia) -
Cover of Old Bush Songs, Banjo Paterson's 1905 collection of bush ballads (from Culture of Australia) -
Singer-songwriter Paul Kelly (from Culture of Australia) -
The University of Sydney (from Culture of Australia) -
A swagman in bushman's apparel, wearing a brimmed hat and carrying swag and billy can (from Culture of Australia) -
Men from Bathurst Island, 1939 (from Aboriginal Australians) -
Skiing in Australia began in Kiandra, a goldmining town in the Snowy Mountains of New South Wales, in the 1860s. (from Culture of Australia) -
Actor playing the bushranger Ned Kelly in The Story of the Kelly Gang (1906), the world's first feature film (from Culture of Australia) -
Nan Tien Temple, a Buddhist temple in Wollongong. Multicultural immigration has increased Australia's religious diversity. (from Culture of Australia) -
Hyde Park Barracks, Sydney (from Culture of Australia) -
The Princess Theatre in Melbourne (from Culture of Australia) -
The first State of Origin shield (from Culture of Australia) -
Dwellings accommodating Aboriginal families at Hermannsburg Mission, Northern Territory, 1923 (from Aboriginal Australians) -
Sheep grazing in rural Australia. Early British settlers introduced Western stock and crops and Australian agriculture now produces an abundance of fresh produce. (from Culture of Australia) -
A Luritja man demonstrating method of attack with boomerang under cover of shield (1920) (from Culture of Australia) -
Cricket match at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, 1860s (from Culture of Australia) -
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South Australian suffragette Catherine Helen Spence (1825–1910). The Australian colonies established democratic parliaments from the 1850s and began to grant women the vote in the 1890s. (from Culture of Australia) -
Statue in Fremantle of an Australian rules footballer taking a spectacular mark (from Culture of Australia) -
The surf lifesaving movement originated in Australia. (Pictured: surf lifesavers, Bondi Beach, 1930s). (from Culture of Australia) -
Countries of birth of Australian estimated resident population, 2006 (from Culture of Australia) -
The verandah is the dominant feature of this Federation Filigree-style pub in Ravenswood. (from Culture of Australia) -
The SBS building in Melbourne's Federation Square. SBS is Australia's multicultural broadcaster. (from Culture of Australia) -
PCA of Orang Asli (Semang) and Andamanese, with worldwide populations in HGDP. (from Aboriginal Australians)
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As of 19 November 2024, there are 205,572 articles within the scope of WikiProject Australia, of which 594 are featured and 885 are good articles. This makes up 2.97% of the articles on Wikipedia, 5.34% of all featured articles and lists, and 2.18% of all good articles (see WP:AUSFG). Including non-article pages, such as talk pages, redirects, categories, etc., there are 526,370 pages in the project.
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