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Even in medieval times there were stories about a large continent in the southern hemisphere. But Europeans had never seen it. They wondered what it was like and whether it was inhabited. In Latin they called this land 'terra australis incognita' or 'the unknown southern land'.Dutch sailors who were blown off the course reached the coast of Australia in the 17th century. But they were not very much impressed by the land they found. In 1642 Captain Abel Tasman was sent out to discover what lay in the east. Tasman sailed too far south and didn't see the mainland, but he visited the island now called Tasmania in his honour.
THE COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA
Even in medieval times there were stories about a large continent in the southern hemisphere. But Europeans had never seen it. They wondered what it was like and whether it was inhabited. In Latin they called this land 'terra australis incognita' or 'the unknown southern land'.Dutch sailors who were blown off the course reached the coast of Australia in the 17th century. But they were not very much impressed by the land they found. In 1642 Captain Abel Tasman was sent out to discover what lay in the east. Tasman sailed too far south and didn't see the mainland, but he visited the island now called Tasmania in his honour.
No careful explorations of the continent were made for another century or so. Then in 1770 the English captain James Cook landed south of present day Sydney. He named this part New South Wales and claimed it for the King of England. The British government thought it was a good place to send their convicts because British prisons were overcrowded and independent American States didn't want to be used a dumping ground any more. In May 1788, the first group of convicts and few soldiers (11 ships about 1000 people) made the trip to Australia.
Life was very difficult for early convicts. The colonists depended on ships from England for all their food and supplies. Farming was difficult. It was at this time that people began breeding fine merino sheep for their wool. Later the wool industry became Australia's most important industry. Many convicts earned their freedom and stayed on in Australia. A lot of free English settlers saw the opportunities of the new continent, several free colonies were founded at the beginning of the 19th century.
Great Britain claimed all of Australia in 1827. In 1851 gold was discovered about 300 km west of Sydney. People rushed to the gold fields to find their fortunes. This attracted robbers called bushrangers. One of the most famous outlaws was Ned Kelly. Aborigines were pushed off their tribal lands by the white settlers.
The six early colonies grew and became states of the modern Australia. The independent colonies soon understood the need to act together on certain matters, they began to see the need for unification. The Constitution was written and approved by the British Crown, and on January 1, 1901 the colonies became states in the new Commonwealth of Australia. Britain, however, continued to make decisions regarding all of Australia's foreign affairs. And only in 1931 Australia gained independence from Great Britain.
Nowadays when people speak of Australia they can mean 3 things: Australia as a continent; Australia as an island and A. as an independent country. It's the 6th largest country and the smallest continent in the world. It covers the territory of over 7.5 million square km and has the population of about 18 million people. It is situated south of Asia, between the Pacific and the Indian Oceans. The icy shores of Antarctica lie to the south. New Zealand is to the east.
Australia is a land of striking differences. In the centre of the continent and in the west more than 50% of the land is desert – dry and inhabited. There are three deserts there – The Great Sandy Desert, the Great Victoria Desert and the Gibson Desert, situated between them. But there are rainforests in the north, snowfields in the south-east and fertile croplands in the south and south-west. The greatest Australian rivers are the Murray and the Darling. There is a number of smaller rivers but most of them dry out in hot periods.
Australia has several different climatic regions, from warm to subtropical and tropical. Threr are tropical forests in the north-east because the winds from the sea bring heavy rainfalls, especially in tropical summer. The climate in the west is very dry and more than half of Australia gets very little rain. In the south-west and east winds bring rains in winter.
Most people live on narrow coasts of the east and south-east. Australia is a very urban country: about 70% of the population live in the 10 largest cities, they are Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra, Adelaide, Brisbane, Perth, Hobart, Darwin, Alice Springs. Australia is a federal state divided into 6 states and 2 territories: New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, Western Australia, South Australia, Tasmania (the island state), Northern Territory and the Australian Capital Territory, which is occupied by the capital of Australia, Canberra.
Australia has an extraordinary collection of birds and animals. Many of them are found only there. Early explorers were so surprised by the emu and the kangaroo that they described the continent as the land where 'birds ran instead of flying and animals hopped instead of running'. (Australia's coat of arms consists of a shield containing the badges of the 6 states and the supporters are a kangaroo and an emu). Australia is the home of the world's most primitive mammals – the duckbill (duckbilled platypus) and the anteater. They are the only mammals that lay eggs. The appearance of the platypus is so unusual that when its skin was first sent to England some scientists said that no such animal could possibly exist. Another well-known Australian animal is the koala that resembles a teddy bear. It spends most of its life in eucalyptus trees and eats only the leaves of these trees. Among other animals found in Australia is the dingo which is yellowish brown and has a bushy tail. The kookaburra is a popular Australian bird that sounds like a human laughing. Other birds are graceful lyrebirds, brilliantly coloured parrots and the great white cockatoo. Two animals were brought to the country by Europeans and have become wild in Australia. These are the buffalo and the European rabbit. They escaped and multiplied and now inhabit the swampy river valleys around Darwin. Each year hunters shoot thousands of them.
Before Europeans came to Australia the country was inhabited by Aborigines, whose ancestors settled in Australia more than 30 000 years ago. There were nearly 300,000 Aborigines at that time. Some of them lived on the coast near the sea, but a lot of them lived in the hot dry desert near the middle of Australia. They couldn't read or write, so they had no history books to study. They kept their past through songs and stories. The main job of every Aborigine was to find food. They were expert hunters. Their weapons consisted of a wood spear, a club and a boomerang. They had no houses because they were constantly moving to new places hunting for food. They didn't wear clothes, they never got sick from wearing wet clothes. Aborigines became experts in finding water in the driest land. They knew how to dig to find water, and they also knew how to find water in bodies of frogs, in hollow logs and in roots of trees. Europeans brought diseases that killed many Aborigines. They fought for their land but were defeated. Today there are very few Aborigines (only about 100,000) in Australia. They work as stockmen, shepherds and cattle drivers on large sheep and cattle ranches. Their children now attend school. They have changed and survived, just as they have survived over 30,000 years in the deserts in Australia.