All About Australia

Australia is a country of contrasts. It is as big as the USA without Alaska, but has only 17, 1 millions inhabitants. The first humans, who already came 40. 000 years ago, were the aboriginal inhabitants from Asia. But its written history began only 200 years ago with the beginning of the colonisation of the continent through the Europeans in the seventeenth century. In 1606 a Dutch ship docked on the west coast and further Dutchs followed, before in 1688 the first Brighton William Dampier arrived at the Northwest coast. Only in 1770 captain James Cook from the British marine sighted the east coast of the continent, mapped it out and finally he arrived in Botany Bay. He took possession of the hole east part of the continent for the English crown and named it New South Wales.

Then the loss of the American colonies forced the English to look for other territories for penal colonies and on the 28th of January in 1788 captain Arthur Phillip arrived as the commander of the first fleet in Sidney Bay (today Port Jackson in the heart of Sidney), near Botany Bay. The first white settlers were prisoners with their guards. Then there also came some traders to help with the erection of the new penal colonies.

Extensive expeditions in the nineteenth century led to it that wide territories were discovered for the colonisation and further colonies, which were later developed to the federal states Victoria, Queensland, Tasmania, South Australia, Western Australia and New South Wales.

The transport of prisoners from England to New South Wales finally stopped in 1840, to Tasmania in 1853 and to West Australia in 1868, but the population rashly grew, because there came more and more free settlers which were in the running for richness through gold in New South Wales and Victoria and which were attracted by the opportunity to get land for cultivating. Farming has developed well and the most important economic goods at first were meat, wheat, wool and gold. The meaning of gold winning returns around the turn of the century, but the farming expanded wider and is still a very important part of the Australian economy. There are six different states in Australia: Western Australia, Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania and South Australia.

There are also two territories: Northern Territory, and Australian Capital Territory, with Canberra, the nation s capital city, in it. Each Australian state has its own government, and its own capital city. The state capitals are Perth, Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Hobart and Adelaide.

Australia has three different climates. North of the Tropic of Capricorn the weather is tropical hot and wet. In the centre, the climate is very dry, and the land is mainly desert. In the south, it is pleasant, with cool winters and war summers. The four great deserts of central Australia cover 2. 000. 000 square kilometres of the hole country, which has 7. 686. 844 square kilometres. A long line of mountains runs from the north to ...