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Travel to Australia — Unbiased reviews and great deals
from TripAdvisorAustralia
| Commonwealth of Australia Sovereign: Queen Elizabeth II (1952) Governor-General: Michael Jeffery
(2003) Prime Minister: Kevin Rudd
(2007)
Current government officials
Land area: 2,941,283 sq mi (7,617,931 sq
km); total area: 2,967,893 sq mi (7,686,850 sq km) Population (2008 est.): 20,600,856 (growth
rate: 0.8%); birth rate: 11.9/1000; infant mortality rate: 4.5/1000;
life expectancy: 80.7; density per sq mi: 7
Capital (2003 est.):
Canberra, 327,700 Largest cities: Sydney, 4,250,100;
Melbourne, 3,610,800; Brisbane, 1,545,700; Perth, 1,375,200; Adelaide,
1,087,600 Monetary unit: Australian
dollar
Languages:
English 79%, native and other languages
Ethnicity/race:
Caucasian 92%, Asian 7%, aboriginal and other
1%
Religions:
Roman Catholic 26%, Anglican 21%, other
Christian 21%, Buddhist 2%, Islam 2%, other 1%, none 15% (2001)
National Holiday:
Australia Day, January 26 Literacy rate: 99%% (2003 est.) Economic summary: GDP/PPP (2007 est.):
$766.8 billion; per capita $37,500. Real growth rate: 4%.
Inflation: 3%. Unemployment: 4.4%. Arable land:
6.15%. Agriculture: wheat, barley, sugarcane, fruits;
cattle, sheep, poultry. Labor force: 10.9 million; agriculture
3.6%, industry 21.2%, services 75.2% (2007 est.). Industries:
mining, industrial and transportation equipment, food processing,
chemicals, steel. Natural resources: bauxite, coal, iron ore,
copper, tin, gold, silver, uranium, nickel, tungsten, mineral sands,
lead, zinc, diamonds, natural gas, petroleum. Exports: $139.4
billion (2007 est.): coal, gold, meat, wool, alumina, iron ore, wheat,
machinery and transport equipment. Imports: $152.7 billion
(2007 est.): machinery and transport equipment, computers and office
machines, telecommunication equipment and parts; crude oil and
petroleum products. Major trading partners: China, U.S., Japan,
Singapore, Germany (2006).
Member of Commonwealth of Nations
Communications: Telephones: main
lines in use: 9.94 million (2006); mobile cellular: 19.76 million
(2006). Radio broadcast stations: AM 262, FM 345, shortwave 1
(1998). Television broadcast stations: 104 (1997). Internet
hosts: 9.458 million (2007). Internet users: 15.3 million
(2006). Transportation: Railways:
total: 38,550 km (2006). Highways: total: 810,641 km; paved:
336,962 km; unpaved: 473,679 km (2004). Waterways: 2,000 km
(mainly used for recreation on Murray and Murray-Darling river
systems) (2006). Ports and harbors: Brisbane, Dampier,
Fremantle, Gladstone, Hay Point, Melbourne, Newcastle, Port Hedland,
Port Kembla, Port Walcott, Sydney. Airports: 461 (2007). International disputes: Timor-Leste and
Australia agreed in 2005 to defer the disputed portion of the boundary
for fifty years and to split hydrocarbon revenues evenly outside the
Joint Petroleum Development Area covered by the 2002 Timor Sea Treaty;
East Timor dispute hampers creation of a revised maritime boundary
with Indonesia in the Timor Sea; Indonesian groups challenge
Australia's claim to Ashmore and Cartier Islands; Australia closed
parts of the Ashmore and Cartier Reserve to Indonesian traditional
fishing and placed restrictions on certain catch; regional states
continue to express concern over Australia's 2004 declaration of a
1,000-nautical mile-wide maritime identification zone; Australia
asserts land and maritime claims to Antarctica (see Antarctica); in
2004 Australia submitted its claims to UN Commission on the Limits of
the Continental Shelf (CLCS) to extend its continental margins
covering over 3.37 million square kilometers or roughly thirty percent
of its claimed exclusive economic zone; since 2003, Australian Defense
Force leads the Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands
(RAMSI) to maintain civil and political order and reinforce regional
security.
Major sources and definitions
Australian External Territories
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Geography
The continent of Australia, 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.
Government
Democracy. Symbolic executive power is vested in
the British monarch, who is represented throughout Australia by the
governor-general.
History
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.
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 with industrial conciliation and arbitration, the secret ballot,
women's suffrage, maternity allowances, and sickness and old-age
pensions.
Australia fought alongside Britain in World War
I, notably with the Australia and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) in the
Dardanelles campaign (1915). Participation in World War II helped
Australia forge closer ties to the United States. Parliamentary power in
the second half of the 20th century shifted between three political
parties: the Australian Labour Party, the Liberal Party, and the National
Party. Australia relaxed its discriminatory immigration laws in the 1960s
and 1970s, which favored Northern Europeans. Thereafter, about 40% of its
immigrants came from Asia, diversifying a population that was
predominantly of English and Irish heritage. An Aboriginal movement that
grew in the 1960s gained full citizenship and improved education for the
country's poorest socioeconomic group.
In March 1996, the opposition Liberal
Party–National Party coalition easily won the national elections,
removing the Labour Party after 13 years in power. Pressure from the new,
conservative One Nation Party threatened to reduce the gains made by
Aborigines and to limit immigration.
In Sept. 1999, Australia led the international
peacekeeping force sent to restore order in East Timor after
pro-Indonesian militias began massacring civilians to thwart East Timor's
referendum on independence.
Changes in Immigration Policy
John Howard won a third term in Nov. 2001,
primarily as the result of his tough policy against illegal immigration.
This policy has also brought him considerable criticism: refugees
attempting to enter Australia—most of them from Afghanistan, Iran,
and Iraq and numbering about 5,000 annually—have been imprisoned in
bleak detention camps and subjected to a lengthy immigration process.
Asylum-seekers have staged riots and hunger strikes. Howard has also dealt
with refugees through the “Pacific solution,” which reroutes
boat people from Australian shores to camps in Papua New Guinea and Nauru.
In 2004, however, the government began easing its policies on
immigration.
Australia on the International Stage as Peacekeeper
Prime Minister Howard sent 2,000 Australian
troops to fight alongside American and British troops in the 2003 Iraq
war, despite strong opposition among Australians.
In July 2003, Australia successfully restored
order to the Solomon Islands, which had descended into lawlessness during
a brutal civil war.
Australian citizens have been the victims of two
significant terrorist attacks in recent years: the 2002 Bali, Indonesia,
bombings by a group with ties to al-Qaeda in which 202 died, many of whom
were Australian, and the 2004 attack on the Australian embassy in
Indonesia, which killed ten.
In Oct. 2004, Howard won a fourth term as prime
minister. When rival security forces in East Timor began fighting each
other in 2006, Australia sent 3,000 peacekeeping troops to stem the
violence. Howard was defeated by the Labor Party's Kevin Rudd in elections
in Nov. 2007. Rudd campaigned on a platform for change, and promised to
focus on the environment, education, and healthcare. Observers predicted
Rudd would maintain a close relationship with the United States. The
military began withdrawing Australia’s 550 troops from Iraq in June
2008, following through on a promise made by Rudd.
See also Australian dependencies.
See
also Encyclopedia: Australia.
U.S. State Dept. Country Notes:
Australia
Australian Bureau of Statistics www.abs.gov.au/
Information Please® Database, © 2007 Pearson
Education, Inc. All rights reserved.
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