Showcase | Content | Interesting facts | Contributing |
Introduction
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. With an area of 7,617,930 square kilometres (2,941,300 sq mi), Australia is the largest country by area in Oceania and the world's sixth-largest country. Australia is the oldest, flattest, and driest inhabited continent, with the least fertile soils. It is a megadiverse country, and its size gives it a wide variety of landscapes and climates, with deserts in the centre, tropical rainforests in the north-east, and mountain ranges in the south-east.
Indigenous Australians have inhabited the continent for approximately 65,000 years. The European maritime exploration of Australia commenced in the early 17th century with the arrival of Dutch explorers. In 1770, Australia's eastern half was claimed by Great Britain and initially settled through penal transportation to the colony of New South Wales from 26 January 1788, a date which became Australia's national day. The European population grew steadily in subsequent decades, and by the time of an 1850s gold rush, most of the continent had been explored by European settlers and an additional five self-governing crown colonies established. On 1 January 1901, the six colonies federated, forming the Commonwealth of Australia. Australia has since maintained a stable liberal democratic political system and wealthy market economy.
Politically, Australia is a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy, comprising six states and ten territories. Australia's population of nearly 26 million is highly urbanised and heavily concentrated on the eastern seaboard. Canberra is the nation's capital, while the five largest cities are Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, and Adelaide. Australia's demography has been shaped by centuries of immigration, with immigrants accounting for 30% of the country's population, the highest proportion among major Western nations. Australia's abundant natural resources and well-developed international trade relations are crucial to the country's economy, which generates its income from various sources including services, mining exports, banking, manufacturing, agriculture and international education.
Featured article -
![Cscr-featured.png](https://web.archive.org/web/20220606155205im_/https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/cf/Cscr-featured.png/23px-Cscr-featured.png)
Persoonia lanceolata, commonly known as lance-leaf geebung, is a shrub native to New South Wales in eastern Australia. It reaches 3 m (10 ft) in height and has smooth grey bark and bright green foliage. Its small yellow flowers grow on racemes and appear in the austral summer and autumn (January to April), followed by green fleshy fruits (known as drupes) which ripen the following spring (September to October). Within the genus Persoonia, P. lanceolata belongs to the lanceolata group of 58 closely related species. It interbreeds with several other species found in its range. (Full article...)
Selected biography -
Clare Grant Stevenson, AM, MBE (18 July 1903 – 22 October 1988) was the inaugural Director of the Women's Auxiliary Australian Air Force (WAAAF), from May 1941 to March 1946. As such, she was described in 2001 as "the most significant woman in the history of the Air Force". Formed as a branch of the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) in March 1941, the WAAAF was the first and largest uniformed women's service in Australia during World War II, numbering more than 18,000 members by late 1944 and making up over thirty per cent of RAAF ground staff. (Full article...)
Did you know (auto-generated) -
- ... that Australian hotelier and television personality Simon van Kempen recorded a single, "I Am Real", in 2011?
- ... that even though Australian citizens are no longer British subjects, they can still vote in elections and stand for parliament in the United Kingdom?
- ... that the Australian national cricket team's 1999 tour of the West Indies was the first four-match series in the history of Test cricket to finish 2–2?
- ... that Australian and Greek troops under Lieutenant Colonel Ian Ross Campbell held off a force of over 1,000 German paratroops on Crete for ten days?
- ... that Belinda Archer won Australia's first World Artistic Gymnastics Championships team medal in 2003?
- ... that the 2007 Heineken Cup Final was the last rugby union match for coach Pat Howard before he returned to Australia to take over the family pharmacy business?
- ... that Australian rules footballer Kate Lutkins, the best on ground at this year's AFL Women's Grand Final, played with a painful foot injury that required surgery?
- ... that Fontainea venosa is a vulnerable rare plant in Australia?
In the news
- 1 June 2022 –
- Scientists from the University of Western Australia announce that a seagrass meadow of the species Posidonia australis covering 200 square kilometres (77 sq mi), approximately three times the size of Manhattan, found off of Western Australia's Shark Bay, actually belongs to one plant, making it the largest known plant on Earth. (BBC News)
- 30 May 2022 – 2022 Australian federal election
- 2022 Liberal Party of Australia leadership election
- Former Minister for Defence Peter Dutton is elected unopposed as Leader of the Liberal Party of Australia and, by extension, Leader of the Opposition following former Prime Minister Scott Morrison's resignation. (The Guardian)
- 2022 National Party of Australia leadership spill
- Former Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce is removed as Leader of the National Party of Australia in a leadership spill and replaced by his former Deputy and former Minister for Agriculture and Northern Australia David Littleproud. (The Guardian)
- As vote counting continues, the Australian Labor Party achieves a majority in the House of Representatives. (The Guardian)
Selected pictures -
On this day
- 1494 – Treaty of Tordesillas signed, dividing the world outside of Europe in an exclusive duopoly between the Spanish Empire and the Portuguese Empire. The longitudes in the treaty coincide with the Western Australia border.
- 1813 – Birth date of Sir Redmond Barry, the judge who sentenced Ned Kelly.
- 1841 – Darlinghurst Gaol took in its first prisoners.
- 1980 – Paul Everingham's Country Liberal Party government is re-elected in the Northern Territory.
- 1998 – Susie Maroney swims from Mexico to Cuba, covering the longest distance ever swum without flippers in open sea.
General images
Topics
Categories
More portals
WikiProject
![]() |
Consider joining WikiProject Australia, a WikiProject dedicated to improving Wikipedia's coverage of topics related to Australia. The project page and its subpages contain suggestions on formatting and style of articles, which can be discussed at the project's notice board. To participate, simply add your name to the project members page.
As of 6 June 2022, there are 192,093 articles within the scope of WikiProject Australia. Including non-article pages, such as talk pages, redirects, categories, etcetera, there are 476,758 pages in the project.
Associated Wikimedia
The following Wikimedia Foundation sister projects provide more on this subject:
-
Commons
Free media repository -
Wikibooks
Free textbooks and manuals -
Wikidata
Free knowledge base -
Wikinews
Free-content news -
Wikiquote
Collection of quotations -
Wikisource
Free-content library -
Wikiversity
Free learning tools -
Wikivoyage
Free travel guide -
Wiktionary
Dictionary and thesaurus