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Australia

Official language : English

Government Type: Constitutional monarchy

Area and population of Australian States and Territories:
Population: 19,8 Mill. (2003)

State/Territory	Area in square kilometres (mainland only)	Population *
	Mainland	State/Terr.	Capital **
Queensland	1 723 936	3.51m	Brisbane (1.57m)
New South Wales	800 628	6.41m	Sydney (3.99m)
Australian Capital Territory (Jervis Bay Territory)	2 358 (72)	0.31m	Canberra (0.31m)
Victoria	227 010	4.71m	Melbourne (3.37m)
Tasmania	64 519	0.47m	Hobart (0.20m)
South Australia	978 810	1.49m	Adelaide (1.09m)
Western Australia	2 526 786	1.86m	Perth (1.34m)
Northern Territory	1 335 742	0.19m	Darwin (0.09m)
AUSTRALIA	7 659 861	18.95m

The Australian federation consists of six States and two Territories. Most inland borders follow lines of longitude and latitude. Australia is the only nation to govern an entire continent and its outlying islands.

Land area:

In land area, Australia is the sixth largest nation after Russia, Canada, China, the United States of America and Brazil. It has, however, a relatively small population. The largest State, Western Australia, is about the same size as Western Europe. The mainland is the largest island and the smallest, flattest continent on Earth. It lies between 10° and 39° South latitude.

The highest point on the mainland : Mount Kosciuszko, is only 2228 metres.

The boundaries: Why are there separate sets of founding documents for each of the States, the Commonwealth and the Northern Territory? Because each State began as a separate British Colony.
In 1901 the six Colonies formed a Federation of six States – the Commonwealth of Australia. In 1787 the boundary of New South Wales was set, in London, as a line through the continent at 135 degrees of longitude.
In 1828 , the boundary was moved across to 129 degrees of longitude and the western part became Western Australia.
In 1836 South Australia took a 'bite' from New South Wales. The establishment of Queensland in 1859 divided the remainder of New South Wales into two.
The western borders of Queensland and South Australia were adjusted in 1862 to align the borders.

The States : From 1788 to 1859, Britain established six Australian colonies – though one of them, South Australia, was called a province to distinguish it as a place for free immigrants, not convicts.

Head of the Federation of States : The six colonies were not constitutionally connected to each other, but to Britain. Each Colony had a parliament, courts and a constitution, and the laws of each were subject to the laws of the British Parliament and courts. From 1837, when she came to the throne, Queen Victoria was the sovereign of each Colony and in 1901 she also became Head of the Federation of States which formed the Commonwealth of Australia.

Head of Government Prime Minister : The Hon John Winston Howard

The Commonwealth: The Colonies formed the six States: New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania, Western Australia, South Australia, and Queensland. Three weeks after they were united as the Commonwealth of Australia under the new Constitution, King Edward VII became Head of the Commonwealth of Australia when his mother, Queen Victoria, died on 22 January 1901.

The Northern Territory: This vast area of Australia has a very different story. It was never planned as a separate colony, province, or state, its physical area the result of the tidying of the boundaries of the colonies in 1861.
In 1863 this remaining portion of the continent became the Northern Territory of South Australia and in 1911, the Northern Territory was transferred from South Australia to the Commonwealth .

The Australian Capital Territory: The Australian Constitution provided for the establishment of a Federal Capital Territory as the seat of the new government of Australia. In 1909, the area finally chosen was transferred from New South Wales to the Commonwealth . Documents relating to subsequent constitutional development of the Australian Capital Territory itself are not included in this first stage of the founding documents website.

History

More than 60 000 years before the arrival of European settlers, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples inhabited most areas of the Australian European settlement in 1788. However, there were an estimated 300 000 Indigenous Australians living on the continent.
Until recently, Western historians focused on early European contact with the Australian continent during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

In recent years this approach has been balanced by the recognition that Asian and Oceanic explorers and traders had contact with Indigenous Australian people long before the European expansion into the eastern hemisphere.
After the American War of Independence, Britain looked to establish new penal settlements to replace the north Atlantic colonies. The First Fleet of 11 ships with 1500 aboard, half of them convicts, arrived at Botany Bay in January 1788. Sydney grew from that first British penal settlement.

Transportation of British convicts to New South Wales ceased in 1840, but continued to Western Australia until 1868. About 160 000 convicts arrived over 80 years. That compares with free settler arrivals as high as 50 000 a year.
During the 1850s, settlement was boosted by gold rushes. Scarcity of labour, the vastness of the bush, and new wealth based on farming, mining and trade all contributed to the development of uniquely Australian social institutions and sensibilities.
In 1901 the Australian colonies federated to become the Commonwealth of Australia. As in Canada, the British monarch remains the monarch of Australia, which is now an independent, democratic nation with a tradition of religious tolerance and free speech.

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