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.
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Featured articles are displayed here, which represent some of the best content on English Wikipedia.
The koala (Phascolarctos cinereus), sometimes called the koala bear, is an arboreal herbivorous marsupial native to Australia. It is the only extant representative of the family Phascolarctidae. Its closest living relatives are the wombats. The koala is found in coastal areas of the island's eastern and southern regions, inhabiting Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, and South Australia. It is easily recognisable by its stout, tailless body and large head with round, fluffy ears and large, dark nose. The koala has a body length of 60–85 cm (24–33 in) and weighs 4–15 kg (8.8–33.1 lb). Fur colour ranges from silver grey to chocolate brown. Koalas from the northern populations are typically smaller and lighter in colour than their counterparts further south. These populations are possibly separate subspecies, but not all researchers accept this. (Full article...)
Selected biography -
Hilda Rix Nicholas (née Rix, later Wright, 1 September 1884 – 3 August 1961) was an Australian artist. Born in the Victorian city of Ballarat, she studied under a leading Australian Impressionist, Frederick McCubbin, at the National Gallery of Victoria Art School from 1902 to 1905 and was an early member of the Melbourne Society of Women Painters and Sculptors. Following the death of her father in 1907, Rix, her only sibling Elsie and her mother travelled to Europe where she undertook further study, first in London and then Paris. Her teachers during the period included John Hassall, Richard Emil Miller and Théophile Steinlen. (Full article...)
Did you know (auto-generated) -
- ... that in 2010, Lauren Mitchell became the first Australian female artistic gymnast to win a world title?
- ... that the first judgement of 2022 from the High Court of Australia was considered a loss for a labour hire organisation, but a win for labour hire organisations?
- ... that the 2022 Optus data breach affected over a third of Australians?
- ... that Australian military chaplain Andrew Gillison took up arms to snipe at Turkish soldiers in Gallipoli?
- ... that Towa Tei's "Sometime Samurai" remained unfinished for eight years until Australian singer Kylie Minogue re-recorded the song in 2004?
- ... that Peter Read coined the term "Stolen Generations" to refer to Aboriginal children who were forcibly separated from their families by Australian governments?
- ... that 2022 documentary The Australian Wars explores "the great Australian silence" about massacres of Indigenous Australians?
- ... that an Australian wildlife conservationist has trapped and killed more than 1,450 feral cats?
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)
- 18 September 2024 –
- Alleged Ghost developer and administrator Jay Je Yoon Jung is arrested in Sydney, Australia, on five charges related to the encrypted communication network's development and operation. (The Register)
Selected pictures -
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The Gold Coast from The Spit
The Gold Coast is a coastal region approximately 70 kilometres south of Brisbane, Australia that, over the past 50 years, has coalesced from a collection of scattered villages into a city of approximately 480,000 people - currently Australia's seventh largest city - and Australia's largest tourist resort. -
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. -
Aerial view of Happy Valley Reservoir
The Happy Valley Reservoir is a water reservoir located in Adelaide, Australia. Constructed when the total population of Adelaide numbered 315,200 (1893 census), the Happy Valley Reservoir now supplies over a half a million people, from Adelaide's southern extent to the city-centre.
Photo credit: Ctbolt -
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: 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. -
View over Macquarie Island beach (with Royal and King penguins).
Macquarie Island lies in the southwest corner of the Pacific Ocean, about half-way between Australia and Antarctica. Politically, it has formed part of the Australian state of Tasmania since 1900 and became a Tasmanian State Reserve in 1978. In 1997 it became a World Heritage Site. The Australian Antarctic Division (AAD) maintains a permanent base on the island. The base's residents, the island's only inhabitants, range in numbers from 20 to 40 people throughout the year.
Photo credit: M. Murphy -
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 Metallic Ringtail (Austrolestes cingulatus) is an Australian species of damselfly, so named because of its glossy metallic colouration and the "rings" on each abdominal segment. It is widely distributed in Tasmania, Victoria, eastern New South Wales and south eastern Queensland. -
Dove Lake and Cradle Mountain in the Central Tasmanian Highlands
Cradle Mountain forms the northern end of the wild Cradle Mountain-Lake St Clair National Park, itself a part of the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area.
The jagged contours of Cradle Mountain epitomise the feel of a wild landscape, while ancient rainforest and alpine heathlands, buttongrass and stands of colourful deciduous beech provide a wide range of environments.
Cradle Mountain is a feature of the Overland Track. -
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). -
End of Skyshow 2006 seen from golf course, corner of Ward Street and Mills Terrace, North Adelaide
Skyshow is an annual fireworks event held in the South Australian capital of Adelaide since 1985. The half-hour fireworks display is synchronised to pop music and presented by local commercial radio station SAFM. Originating as an Australia Day celebration, the event was subsequently moved to late summer, usually February. Although beset with serious financial difficulties in the late 1990s until rescued by the South Australian Government, it is estimated some 150,000 people attend the main festivities in Bonython Park, whilst many more watch from vantage points along the Adelaide Hills.
Photo credit: Alex Sims -
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: 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. -
Hakea laurina, or Pincushion Hakea
Hakea is a genus of about 150 species of plants in the Family Proteaceae, endemic to Australia. Hakeas are found in every state of Australia with the highest species diversity being found in the south west of Western Australia.
Photo credit: Fir0002 -
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. -
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. -
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. -
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. -
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 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: Sport the LibraryJeremy Doyle (1983–2011) was an Australian wheelchair basketball player. Left paraplegic after a car accident, he was classified as a 1 point player. While representing his country Doyle won two gold medals, first at the 2009 Paralympic World Cup and again at the 2010 Wheelchair Basketball World Championship.
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On this day
- 1954 – Melbourne underworld criminal figure, writer, and actor Chopper Read is born.
- 1979 – The first stage of Brisbane suburban electrification between Ferny Grove and Darra is commissioned by the Queensland Premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen.
- 1993 – The Socceroos lose to Argentina 0–1 in Buenos Aires, thereby failing to qualify for the 1994 FIFA World Cup on aggregate.
- 2001 – Australian tennis player Lleyton Hewitt become the youngest man to be world number one in tennis.
General images
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The Royal Exhibition Building, Melbourne (from Culture of Australia) -
The Bulletin, founded by J. F. Archibald (left), nurtured bush poets such as Henry Lawson (right). (from Culture of Australia) -
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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) -
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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Dwellings accommodating Aboriginal families at Hermannsburg Mission, Northern Territory, 1923 (from Aboriginal Australians) -
St Mary Mackillop established an extensive network of schools and is Australia's first canonised saint of the Catholic Church. (from Culture of Australia) -
A typical Queenslander house in Brisbane (from Culture of Australia) -
Founded in 1993, Sydney's Tropfest is the world's largest short film festival. (from Culture of Australia) -
PCA of Orang Asli (Semang) and Andamanese, with worldwide populations in HGDP. (from Aboriginal Australians) -
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Hyde Park Barracks, Sydney (from Culture of Australia) -
The first State of Origin shield (from Culture of Australia) -
Nan Tien Temple, a Buddhist temple in Wollongong. Multicultural immigration has increased Australia's religious diversity. (from Culture of Australia) -
Donald Bradman is often cited as statistically the greatest sportsman of any major sport. (from Culture of Australia) -
Cricket match at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, 1860s (from Culture of Australia) -
A swagman in bushman's apparel, wearing a brimmed hat and carrying swag and billy can (from Culture of Australia) -
Skiing in Australia began in Kiandra, a goldmining town in the Snowy Mountains of New South Wales, in the 1860s. (from Culture of Australia) -
Men from Bathurst Island, 1939 (from Aboriginal Australians) -
Cover of Old Bush Songs, Banjo Paterson's 1905 collection of bush ballads (from Culture of Australia) -
Anzac Day dawn services are held throughout Australia every April. (from Culture of Australia) -
Noongar traditional dancers in Perth (from Aboriginal Australians) -
Singer-songwriter Paul Kelly (from Culture of Australia) -
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) -
A Luritja man demonstrating method of attack with boomerang under cover of shield (1920) (from Culture of Australia) -
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The University of Sydney (from Culture of Australia) -
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An Eastern Arrernte man of the Arltunga district, Northern Territory, in 1923. His hut is decked with porcupine grass. (from Aboriginal Australians) -
Historical image of Aboriginal Australian women and children, Maloga, New South Wales around 1900 (in European dress) (from Aboriginal Australians) -
A billycan used for heating water (from Culture of Australia) -
Golden Wattle, Australia's floral emblem and the source of Australia's national colours, green and gold (from Culture of Australia) -
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Didgeridoo performers (from Culture of Australia) -
William Wentworth (1790–1872) was among the first to articulate a vision of Australian nationhood. (from Culture of Australia) -
Interior of St Mary's Cathedral, Sydney (from Culture of Australia) -
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An Aboriginal encampment near the Adelaide foothills in an 1854 painting by Alexander Schramm (from Aboriginal Australians) -
The surf lifesaving movement originated in Australia. (Pictured: surf lifesavers, Bondi Beach, 1930s). (from Culture of Australia) -
Statue in Fremantle of an Australian rules footballer taking a spectacular mark (from Culture of Australia) -
Kylie Minogue, one of Australia's most successful pop musicians (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) -
The Wiggles performing in the United States in 2007 (from Culture of Australia) -
The SBS building in Melbourne's Federation Square. SBS is Australia's multicultural broadcaster. (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) -
Convict architecture at Port Arthur, Tasmania (from Culture of Australia) -
A group of Australian men wearing speedos (from Culture of Australia) -
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Governor Arthur Phillip hoists the British flag over the new colony at Sydney Cove in 1788 (from Culture of Australia) -
House in Killara, New South Wales (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) -
Parliament House, Canberra (from Culture of Australia) -
The Princess Theatre in Melbourne (from Culture of Australia) -
The Matildas, Australia's national women's football team (from Culture of Australia) -
Portrait of Madame Melba by Rupert Bunny (from Culture of Australia) -
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)
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As of 16 November 2024, there are 205,558 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 526,274 pages in the project.
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