Portal:Australia
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Introduction
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The Pinnacles, Western Australia
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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.
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Warner Bros. Movie World is a theme park on the Gold Coast in Queensland, Australia. Owned and operated by Village Roadshow Theme Parks, the park opened on 3 June 1991. It is part of a 154-hectare (380.5-acre) entertainment precinct, with the adjacent Village Roadshow Studios and nearby Wet'n'Wild Gold Coast, among other sites operated by Village Roadshow. Movie World is Australia's only film-related theme park and the oldest of the Warner Bros. parks worldwide (the others are at Madrid and Abu Dhabi). As of 2016, it receives a yearly average of 1.4 million visitors. (Full article...)
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Faith Yvonne Leech (31 March 1941 – 14 September 2013) was an Australian freestyle swimmer who won a gold medal in the 4×100–metre freestyle relay and bronze in the 100-metre freestyle at the 1956 Summer Olympics in Melbourne. (Full article...)
Did you know (auto-generated) -
- ... that the 2022 Optus data breach affected over a third of Australians?
- ... 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 Gil Kim played professional baseball in the Netherlands, China, Australia, Spain, and Venezuela, scouted in Mexico and the Dominican Republic, and coaches in Canada?
- ... that Aboriginal soldier Tim Hughes was decorated for remarkable bravery, exceptional coolness and initiative during the Battle of Buna–Gona?
- ... that an exhibition match of Australian rules football was contested in London on 28 October 1916 between two teams of elite footballers also serving in the First AIF?
- ... that on its maiden voyage from Liverpool to Australia, the George Roper ran aground and was wrecked?
- ... that the Bluey special "The Sign" reminded a Sydney Morning Herald reporter of Australia's housing crisis?
- ... that a baby penguin from Australia is "an absolute unit"?
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)
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The Central Basin and Captain Cook water jet looking towards the National Library and Parliament House.
The Captain James Cook Memorial was built by the Commonwealth Government to commemorate the Bicentenary of Captain James Cook's first sighting of the east coast of Australia. The memorial includes a water jet located in the central basin and a skeleton globe sculpture at Regatta Point showing the paths of Cook's expeditions. On 25 April 1970, Queen Elizabeth II officially inaugurated the memorial. When running both pumps simultaneously, the main jet throws approximately six tons of water into the air at any instant, reaching a maximum height of 147 metres. Alternatively the jet can be run on a single pump reaching a lower height of 110 metres. During special occasions it can be illuminated, often with coloured lights. -
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. -
The Art Gallery of South Australia from North Terrace.
The Art Gallery of South Australia located in Adelaide is the most significant visual arts museum in the Australian state of South Australia. It has a collection of almost 45,000 works of art, making it the second largest state art collection in Australia (after the National Gallery of Victoria).
Photo credit: K. Lindstrom -
Photo credit: Fir0002Nick Heidfeld and Nico Rosberg at corner 6 of the 2008 Australian Grand Prix, during one of the race's safety car periods. This first race of the 2008 Formula One season was won by McLaren-Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton. Heidfeld and Rosberg finished second and third, respectively. -
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. -
Statue of the Dog on the Tuckerbox at Gundagai, New South Wales.
The Dog on the Tuckerbox is an Australian historical monument and tourist attraction, located at Snake Gully, eight kilometres from Gundagai in New South Wales. It was sculpted by local stonemason Frank Rusconi and was unveiled by the then Prime Minister of Australia Joseph Lyons on 28 November 1932 as a tribute to pioneers.
Photo credit: AYArktos -
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: 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: 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. -
A Beautiful Firetail (Stagonopleura bella) male (top) and female. In this common Australian species of estrildid finch, nest-building and raising children is done collaboratively. -
The Scenic Railway at en:Luna Park, Melbourne, viewed from Shakespeare Grove
Luna Park is an amusement park located on the foreshore of Port Phillip Bay in St Kilda, Victoria, which is an inner suburb of Melbourne, Australia. It opened in 1912 and has been operating since. It is the first of two Luna Parks still operating in Australia; the other is on Sydney Harbour.
Photo credit: Stevage -
A Superb Fairy Wren perched on a fence.
The Superb fairywren (Malurus cyaneus), commonly known as the blue wren in south-eastern Australia, is the best-known of all fairy-wrens and is endemic to Australia. It is common throughout the relatively wet and fertile crescent in the south-eastern corner of the Australian continent, from lower South Australia through all of Victoria, coastal and sub-coastal New South Wales, and Queensland as far north as the Brisbane area, and also in Tasmania. Superb Fairy-wrens occupy a wide range of habitat types and are found in almost any area that has at least a little dense undergrowth for them to shelter in, including grasslands with scattered shrubs, moderately thick forest, woodland, heaths, and domestic gardens.
Photo credit: LiquidGhoul -
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. -
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: 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: 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). -
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. -
Weedy Sea Dragon.
The Weedy Sea Dragon or Common Sea Dragon (Phyllopteryx taeniolatus) is a marine fish related to the seahorse. It is the only member of the genus Phyllopteryx. They occur in water 3 to 50 metres deep round the southern coastline of Australia, approximately between Port Stephens, New South Wales and Geraldton, Western Australia, as well as around Tasmania. Weedy Sea Dragons are named for the weed-like projections on their bodies that camouflage them as they move among the seaweed beds where they are usually found.
Photo credit: Richard Ling -
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. -
A family of black swans on the shore of the Swan River with the Perth skyline in background.
Perth is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Western Australia. It is the fourth largest city in Australia, with a population of 1,477,818 in June 2005, making up almost 75% of Western Australia's population. It is a coastal city, located beside the Indian Ocean, and is situated on the Swan River in the lower south-western portion of the Australian continent.
Photo credit: Nachoman-au -
Photo credit: John O'NeillA panoramic view across the interior of the Australian Synchrotron (a subatomic particle accelerator) in Clayton, Victoria. Dominating the image is the storage ring, showing the optical diagnostic beamline at front right. In the middle of the storage ring is the booster synchrotron and linac. The yellow, green and red magnets on the trolley (front left) are a demonstration of the bending and focusing magnets used in the storage ring to produce the synchrotron radiation and maintain the electron beam. -
Photo credit: John O'NeillFuel dumping is a practice used by aircraft that are equipped to jettison fuel in the event of certain types of emergency situations. This RAAF F-111 aircraft is performing a dump-and-burn fuel dump at the Australian International Airshow, a procedure where the fuel is intentionally ignited using the plane's afterburner. This type of fuel dumping is also referred to as "torching" or a "zippo".
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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
The following are images from various Australia-related articles on Wikipedia.
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Cover of Old Bush Songs, Banjo Paterson's 1905 collection of bush ballads (from Culture of Australia) -
William Wentworth (1790–1872) was among the first to articulate a vision of Australian nationhood. (from Culture of Australia) -
Countries of birth of Australian estimated resident population, 2006 (from Culture of Australia) -
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) -
St Mary Mackillop established an extensive network of schools and is Australia's first canonised saint of the Catholic Church. (from Culture of Australia) -
The University of Sydney (from Culture of Australia) -
A commemorative statue of John Simpson Kirkpatrick, a famous stretcher bearer who was killed in the Gallipoli Campaign. (from Culture of Australia) -
Didgeridoo performers (from Culture of Australia) -
Historical image of Aboriginal Australian women and children, Maloga, New South Wales around 1900 (in European dress) (from Aboriginal Australians) -
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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) -
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Interior of St Mary's Cathedral, Sydney (from Culture of Australia) -
PCA of Orang Asli (Semang) and Andamanese, with worldwide populations in HGDP. (from Aboriginal Australians) -
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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) -
The Bulletin, founded by J. F. Archibald (left), nurtured bush poets such as Henry Lawson (right). (from Culture of Australia) -
Founded in 1993, Sydney's Tropfest is the world's largest short film festival. (from Culture of Australia) -
Noongar traditional dancers in Perth (from Aboriginal Australians) -
A group of Australian men wearing speedos (from Culture of Australia) -
Kylie Minogue, one of Australia's most successful pop musicians (from Culture of Australia) -
Dwellings accommodating Aboriginal families at Hermannsburg Mission, Northern Territory, 1923 (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 SBS building in Melbourne's Federation Square. SBS is Australia's multicultural broadcaster. (from Culture of Australia) -
A Luritja man demonstrating method of attack with boomerang under cover of shield (1920) (from Culture of Australia) -
The Wiggles performing in the United States in 2007 (from Culture of Australia) -
House in Killara, New South Wales (from Culture of Australia) -
The Matildas, Australia's national women's football team (from Culture of Australia) -
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A swagman in bushman's apparel, wearing a brimmed hat and carrying swag and billy can (from Culture of Australia) -
An Eastern Arrernte man of the Arltunga district, Northern Territory, in 1923. His hut is decked with porcupine grass. (from Aboriginal Australians) -
The verandah is the dominant feature of this Federation Filigree-style pub in Ravenswood. (from Culture of Australia) -
The surf lifesaving movement originated in Australia. (Pictured: surf lifesavers, Bondi Beach, 1930s). (from Culture of Australia) -
Nan Tien Temple, a Buddhist temple in Wollongong. Multicultural immigration has increased Australia's religious diversity. (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) -
Cricket match at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, 1860s (from Culture of Australia) -
A billycan used for heating water (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) -
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The Royal Exhibition Building, Melbourne (from Culture of Australia) -
The Princess Theatre in Melbourne (from Culture of Australia) -
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Singer-songwriter Paul Kelly (from Culture of Australia) -
Governor Arthur Phillip hoists the British flag over the new colony at Sydney Cove in 1788 (from Culture of Australia) -
Hyde Park Barracks, Sydney (from Culture of Australia) -
Statue in Fremantle of an Australian rules footballer taking a spectacular mark (from Culture of Australia) -
A typical Queenslander house in Brisbane (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) -
The first State of Origin shield (from Culture of Australia) -
Convict architecture at Port Arthur, Tasmania (from Culture of Australia) -
Parliament House, Canberra (from Culture of Australia)
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As of 19 November 2024, there are 205,573 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 526,372 pages in the project.
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