Portal:Australia

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Introduction  

Kangaroos on a beach -

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The flag of Australia

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 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 one of the oldest living cultures 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 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.

Featured article -

  Featured articles are displayed here, which represent some of the best content on English Wikipedia.

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Radium Hill, a former minesite in South Australia which operated from 1906 until 1961. It was Australia's first uranium mine, years before the country's next major mines at Rum Jungle in the Northern Territory (opened in 1950), and the Mary Kathleen mine in Queensland (1958).

Nuclear weapons testing, uranium mining and export, and nuclear power have often been the subject of public debate in Australia, and the anti-nuclear movement in Australia has a long history. Its origins date back to the 1972–1973 debate over French nuclear testing in the Pacific and the 1976–1977 debate about uranium mining in Australia. (Full article...)

More Australian featured content

Selected biography -

Entries here consist of Good and Featured articles, which meet a core set of high editorial standards.

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John Hadley (born 27 September 1966) is an Australian philosopher whose research concerns moral and political philosophy, including animal ethics, environmental ethics, and metaethics. He is currently a senior lecturer in philosophy in the School of Humanities and Communication Arts at Western Sydney University. He has previously taught at Charles Sturt University and the University of Sydney, where he studied as an undergraduate and doctoral candidate. In addition to a variety of articles in peer-reviewed journals and edited collections, he is the author of the 2015 monograph Animal Property Rights (Lexington Books) and the 2019 monograph Animal Neopragmatism (Palgrave Macmillan). He is also the co-editor, with Elisa Aaltola, of the 2015 collection Animal Ethics and Philosophy (Rowman & Littlefield International). (Full article...)

More Australian featured biographies

Did you know (auto-generated) -  

• ... that Nixon's "Slaughtergate" scandal involved selling kangaroo meat as beef?
• ... that Australian official Jack Emanuel was awarded the George Cross in 1971 after being stabbed to death whilst trying to resolve a land dispute with the Tolai people of New Guinea?
• ... that Margaret Reid is the first woman to have served as President of the Australian Senate?
• ... that Anna Burke was the second woman to give birth while a member of the Australian House of Representatives?
• ... that Australian military chaplain Andrew Gillison took up arms to snipe at Turkish soldiers in Gallipoli?
• ... that the first imported copies of Norman Lindsay's Age of Consent were confiscated by Australian customs authorities?
• ... that Mabel Freer was deported from Australia because she could not speak Italian?
• ... that Zali Steggall, an independent member of the Parliament of Australia, is an Olympic skiing medallist?

More Australian facts

In the news  

7 January 2025 – 2025 Swan River Seaplanes Cessna 208 crash

A light aircraft crashes near Rottnest Island, Western Australia, killing the pilot and two tourists from Denmark and Switzerland while injuring three other passengers. (Reuters)

5 January 2025 – 2025 United Cup

In tennis, the United States wins its second United Cup title after defeating Poland 2–0 in the final at the Ken Rosewall Arena in Sydney, Australia. (Reuters)

24 December 2024 – 2024–25 Australian bushfire season

Residents of the Grampians region of Victoria, Australia, evacuate due to bushfires, with more than 41,000 hectares (100,000 acres) already burnt by the bushfires. (BBC News)

23 December 2024 –

A man is arrested and charged with animal cruelty for shooting and killing 98 kangaroos on a military base in Singleton, New South Wales, Australia. (news.com.au)

20 December 2024 – Australia–Solomon Islands relations

Australia agrees to provide Solomon Islands with financing, training, and infrastructure support worth AU$190 million (US$118 million) over four years to strengthen its police force as part of a renewed security partnership between the two countries. (France 24)

16 December 2024 – 2024 Australia heat wave

Walpeup, Victoria, Australia, reports a temperature of 47.1 °C (116.8 °F), the hottest temperature reported in the state since 2019. Extreme heat wave and fire risk warnings are also issued for areas across Australia. (The Guardian) (ABC News Australia)

Selected pictures -

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  Aeshnidae

  Photo: JJ Harrison

  The 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.
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  A panorama of Melbourne's Yarra River at twilight, showing the Central Business District on the left and the Southbank entertainment district on the right.

  
  
  Melbourne is the state capital and largest city in the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-largest city in Australia, with a population of approximately 3.7 million^[1] (2006 estimate). It is a coastal city located at the northern end of the Port Phillip Bay. The city's name is pronounced as either /ˈmel.bən/ or /ˈmæl.bən/. Formerly the capital city of Australia from 1901 until 1927, Melbourne is today a centre of finance and entertainment and is considered a minor world city.
  
  Photo credit: Diliff
  
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  A panorama of the La Trobe Reading Room from ground level looking upwards to the domed roof.

  
  
  The State Library of Victoria is the central library of the state of Victoria, Australia, located in the city of Melbourne. It is sited on the block bounded by Swanston, La Trobe, Russell and Little Lonsdale Streets, in the northern centre of the central business district. The Library's combined collections contain over 1.5 million books and 16,000 serials, including the diaries of the city's founders, John Batman and John Pascoe Fawkner, as well as the folios of Captain James Cook.
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  Mount Pleasant Radio Observatory

  Photo credit: Noodle snacks

  The 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.
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  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
  
  
  
  
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  Passchendaele

  Photo credit: James Francis Hurley

  Soldiers 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.
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  Forked tongue

  Photo credit: LiquidGhoul

  The 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.
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  Giraffes in the Taronga Zoo with the Sydney skyline in background.

  
  
  Taronga Zoo is the zoological park of the city of Sydney. Founded in 1916, it is located on the shores of Sydney Harbour in Mosman. It is divided into eight zoogeographic regions and features over 2,600 animals on 28.7 hectares, making it one of the largest zoos of its kind.
  
  Photo credit: Jan Derk
  
  
  
  
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  Zizina labradus

  Photo credit: John O'Neill

  A 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).
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  Alpine Range scenery as viewed just past Mt Hotham.

  
  The Australian Alps are the highest mountain ranges of mainland Australia. They are located in south-eastern Australia, straddling far southern New South Wales and eastern Victoria. The Alps contain the Australian mainland's only peaks exceeding 2,000 metres AHD and it is only here that snow occurs regularly.
  
  Photo credit: Fir0002
  
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  Poison gas in World War I

  Photo credit: Frank Hurley

  A 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.
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  Fuel dumping

  Photo credit: John O'Neill

  Fuel 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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  Hobart

  Photo credit: Noodle snacks

  A view of the greater Hobart area, as seen from Mount Wellington. The state capital and most populous city of the Australian island state of Tasmania, Hobart is located in the state's south-east, on the estuary of the River Derwent.
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  Cairns Birdwing

  Photo credit: Fir0002

  The 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.
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  View of Limestone cliffs and beach looking towards Point Avoid in Coffin Bay National Park circa March 2006.

  
  Coffin Bay is a national park in on the Eyre Peninsula of South Australia, 301 kilometres west of Adelaide, and 46 kilometres west of Port Lincoln. The township of Coffin Bay is near the entrance to the National Park. The National Park features a long peninsula with a sheltered bay, coastal dunes, swamps and a spectacular coastline of islands, reefs, limestone cliffs and white surf beaches.
  
  Photo credit: Takver
  
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  The notice reads "£8000 Reward - Robbery and Murder."

  
  
  A notice of an £8000 pound reward for the capture of the Kelly gang, which included Ned Kelly, Dan Kelly, Joe Byrne, Steve Hart, Kate Kelly.
  
  Source: National Archives
  
  
  
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  Brian Nankervis

  Photo: John O'Neill; edit: JJ Harrison

  Brian Nankervis (b. 1956), an Australian comedian and writer, shown here during a live performance. Nankervis rose to popularity while playing Raymond J. Bartholomeuz on Hey Hey It's Saturday; since 2005 he has been a host of the gameshow RocKwiz.
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  Tasmanian devil

  Photo: JJ Harrison

  The Tasmanian devil (Sarcophilus harrisii) is a carnivorous marsupial found in the wild only on the Australian island of Tasmania. It is characterised by its stocky and muscular build, black fur, pungent odour, extremely loud and disturbing screech, keen sense of smell, and ferocity when feeding. Its large head and neck allow it to generate the strongest bite per unit body mass of any living mammal.
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  Fleet Air Arm (RAN)

  Photo: Fir0002

  A Eurocopter AS350 "Squirrel" helicopter flown by 723 Squadron of the Fleet Air Arm (FAA), the section of the Royal Australian Navy responsible for the operation of aircraft. The FAA is currently an all-helicopter force, operating four separate models in the anti-submarine warfare and maritime support roles.
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  Tasmanian Native-hen

  Photo credit: Noodle snacks

  The 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).
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  Australian Synchrotron

  Photo credit: John O'Neill

  A 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.
• 
  Tawny Frogmouth

  Photo: Benjamint444

  The Tawny Frogmouth (Podargus strigoides) is a large species of frogmouth found throughout the Australian mainland, Tasmania, and southern New Guinea. Unlike the owl for which it is often mistaken, the Tawny Frogmouth is not a bird of prey. Instead, it is almost exclusively insectivorous. For defense, it relies on cryptic camouflage, standing still to appear part of a branch.

On this day  

24 January:

An Australian soldier in South Vietnam

• 1903 – The Goldfields Water Supply Scheme piping water from Perth to the goldfields of Coolgardie was completed.
• 1908 – The Eastern Suburbs Rugby League Football Club, now known as the Sydney Roosters, are formed at Paddington Town Hall.
• 1967 – Members of 1st Australian Task Force in Vietnam make contact with the enemy for the first time in the area of the Bien Hoa.
• 1999 – A full size replica of the Duyfken, built by the "Duyfken 1606 Replica Foundation" and the Maritime Museum of Western Australia, is launched in Fremantle.

More Australian anniversaries...

General images  

The following are images from various Australia-related articles on Wikipedia.

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  Didgeridoo performers (from Culture of Australia)
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  A Luritja man demonstrating method of attack with boomerang under cover of shield (1920) (from Culture of Australia)
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  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 Wiggles performing in the United States in 2007 (from Culture of Australia)
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  The Princess Theatre in Melbourne (from Culture of Australia)
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  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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  The surf lifesaving movement originated in Australia. (Pictured: surf lifesavers, Bondi Beach, 1930s). (from Culture of Australia)
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  Cricket match at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, 1860s (from Culture of Australia)
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  PCA of Orang Asli (Semang) and Andamanese, with worldwide populations in HGDP. (from Aboriginal Australians)
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  A typical Queenslander house in Brisbane (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)
• 
  Anzac Day dawn services are held throughout Australia every April. (from Culture of Australia)
• 
  Interior of St Mary's Cathedral, Sydney (from Culture of Australia)
• 
  Federation Bungalow in Killara, Sydney (from Culture of Australia)
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  Cover of Old Bush Songs, Banjo Paterson's 1905 collection of bush ballads (from Culture of Australia)
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  Noongar traditional dancers in Perth (from Aboriginal Australians)
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  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 high-set Victorian-era Queenslander with a large veranda in Brisbane (from Culture of Australia)
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  The Royal Exhibition Building, Melbourne (from Culture of Australia)
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  The first State of Origin shield (from Culture of Australia)
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  Founded in 1993, Sydney's Tropfest is the world's largest short film festival. (from Culture of Australia)
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  Men from Bathurst Island, 1939 (from Aboriginal Australians)
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  The Matildas, Australia's national women's football team (from Culture of Australia)
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  C. J. Dennis, poetic humourist of Australian English (from Culture of Australia)
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  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)
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  Countries of birth of Australian estimated resident population, 2006 (from Culture of Australia)
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  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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  House in Killara, New South Wales (from Culture of Australia)
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  Phar Lap winning the Melbourne Cup, "the race that stops a nation" (from Culture of Australia)
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  Kylie Minogue, one of Australia's most successful pop musicians (from Culture of Australia)
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  Dwellings accommodating Aboriginal families at Hermannsburg Mission, Northern Territory, 1923 (from Aboriginal Australians)
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  Sydney Opera House (foreground) and Sydney Harbor Bridge (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)
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  Hyde Park Barracks, Sydney (from Culture of Australia)
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  The verandah is the dominant feature of this Federation Filigree-style pub in Ravenswood. (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)
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  Statue in Fremantle of an Australian rules footballer taking a spectacular mark (from Culture of Australia)
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  Dame Edna Everage, a comic creation of Barry Humphries (from Culture of Australia)
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  The SBS building in Melbourne's Federation Square. SBS is Australia's multicultural broadcaster. (from Culture of Australia)
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  Donald Bradman is often cited as statistically the greatest sportsman of any major sport. (from Culture of Australia)
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  William Wentworth (1790–1872) was among the first to articulate a vision of Australian nationhood. (from Culture of Australia)
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  The Bulletin, founded by J. F. Archibald (left), nurtured bush poets such as Henry Lawson (right). (from Culture of Australia)
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  Nan Tien Temple, a Buddhist temple in Wollongong. Multicultural immigration has increased Australia's religious diversity. (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)
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  Parliament House, Canberra (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)
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  Birdsville Hotel, an Australian pub in outback Queensland (from Culture of Australia)
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  Portrait of Madame Melba by Rupert Bunny (from Culture of Australia)
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  A billycan used for heating water (from Culture of Australia)
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  Singer-songwriter Paul Kelly (from Culture of Australia)
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  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)
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  Historical image of Aboriginal Australian women and children, Maloga, New South Wales around 1900 (in European dress) (from Aboriginal Australians)
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  Bush tucker harvested in Alice Springs (from Culture of Australia)
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  A commemorative statue of John Simpson Kirkpatrick, a famous stretcher bearer who was killed in the Gallipoli Campaign. (from Culture of Australia)
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  Convict architecture at Port Arthur, Tasmania (from Culture of Australia)
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  The University of Sydney (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.

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WikiProject  

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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 24 January 2025, there are 206,718 articles within the scope of WikiProject Australia, of which 599 are featured and 892 are good articles. This makes up 2.98% of the articles on Wikipedia, 5.34% of all featured articles and lists, and 2.17% of all good articles (see WP:AUSFG). Including non-article pages, such as talk pages, redirects, categories, etc., there are 413,436 pages in the project.

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