Portal:Australia
Showcase | Content | Interesting facts | Contributing |
Introduction
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/88/Flag_of_Australia_%28converted%29.svg/175px-Flag_of_Australia_%28converted%29.svg.png)
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. It is the largest country by area in Oceania and the sixth-largest country in the world. 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 including deserts and tropical rainforests.
The ancestors of Aboriginal Australians began arriving from south-east Asia 50,000 to 65,000 years ago, during the last glacial period. They settled on the continent and formed approximately 250 distinct language groups by the time of European settlement, maintaining some of the longest known continuing artistic and religious traditions 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 constitutional monarchy comprising six states and ten territories. Its population of over 27 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 over 5 million. Australia is culturally diverse and 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.
Featured article -
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/cf/Cscr-featured.png/23px-Cscr-featured.png)
No. 79 Squadron is a Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) flight training unit that has been formed on four occasions since 1943. The squadron was established in May 1943 as a fighter unit equipped with Supermarine Spitfires, and subsequently saw combat in the South West Pacific theatre of World War II. Between June 1943 and the end of the war in August 1945 it flew air defence patrols to protect Allied bases and ships, escorted Australian and United States aircraft, and attacked Japanese positions. The squadron was disbanded in November 1945, but was re-formed between 1962 and 1968 to operate CAC Sabres from Ubon Air Base in Thailand. In this role it contributed to the defence of Thailand against a feared attack from its neighbouring states and exercised with United States Air Force units. No. 79 Squadron was active again at RAAF Base Butterworth in Malaysia between 1986 and 1988 where it operated Mirage III fighters and a single DHC-4 Caribou transport during the period in which the RAAF's fighter squadrons were transitioning to new aircraft. (Full article...)
Selected biography -
Sidney Charles Bartholemew "Ben" Gascoigne AO (11 November 1915 – 25 March 2010) was a New Zealand-born optical astronomer and expert in photometry who played a leading role in the design and commissioning of Australia's largest optical telescope, the Anglo-Australian Telescope, which for a time was one of the world's most important astronomical facilities. Born in Napier, New Zealand, Gascoigne trained in Auckland and at the University of Bristol, before moving to Australia during World War II to work at the Commonwealth Solar Observatory at Mount Stromlo in Canberra. He became skillful in the design and manufacture of optical devices such as telescope elements. (Full article...)
Did you know (auto-generated) -
- ... that politician John D'Orazio helped to secure a three-year trial of daylight saving time in Western Australia?
- ... that 2022 documentary The Australian Wars explores "the great Australian silence" about massacres of Indigenous Australians?
- ... that Australiformis semoni is a parasite that infests marsupials in Australia and New Guinea and whose infestation could cause debilitating ulcerative granulomatous gastritis?
- ... that pumices erupted by the Protector Shoal volcano in 1962 floated to Australia and South America?
- ... that Tupou VI was crowned by D'Arcy Wood, an Australian, in order to respect the tradition of native Tongans not touching the king's head?
- ... that the developers of Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number suggested that Australian customers pirate their game?
- ... that Ged Kearney represented Batman in the Parliament of Australia from 2018 to 2019?
- ... that Marie Breen retired from the Australian Senate to care for her husband, who had been badly injured in a car accident?
In the news
- 27 August 2024 –
- Australian Police and New Zealand Police announce they have concluded a joint illicit drug operation that resulted in 1,611 arrests and 2,962 charges nationwide. The police also confiscated almost 1,400 kilograms (3,100 lb) of illicit drugs and over 2,500 cannabis plants, worth 93 million AUD (US$63 million). (DW)
- 25 August 2024 –
- Four people are injured in a mass stabbing in Engadine, New South Wales, Australia. The suspect is later taken into custody. (Reuters)
- 15 August 2024 – Israel–Hamas war
- Peter Dutton, the leader of Australia’s Liberal Party, calls on the Australian government to ban the entry of Palestinian refugees fleeing from conflict in the Gaza Strip, which is met with significant condemnation from several politicians and organizations as promoting racial stereotypes. (ABC Australia) (Al Jazeera)
- SBS World News reports that the Australian government has rejected a majority of Palestinian visa applications, accepting 2,922 applications and rejecting 7,111 applications while granting 8,746 visas to Israeli citizens and rejecting only 235 applications. (Al Jazeera)
- 12 August 2024 –
- One person is killed and several others are injured when a helicopter stolen from Cairns Airport crashes into a hotel in Cairns, Queensland, Australia. (The Guardian)
- 7 August 2024 – 2024 Summer Olympics
- French police detain Australian field hockey player Tom Craig for allegedly purchasing cocaine. (DW)
Selected pictures -
On this day
![John Forrest, 1898](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c6/John_Forrest_1898.jpg/80px-John_Forrest_1898.jpg)
- 1904 – The first Australian Open golf tournament is held.
- 1918 – Death of John Forrest, an Australian explorer, the first premier of Western Australia and a cabinet minister in Australia's first federal parliament.
- 1928 – St Mary's Cathedral opens in Sydney after 60 years of construction.
- 1948 – Australian National Airways (ANA) DC3 VH-ANK Lutana crashes near Quirindi, killing 13.
- 1984 – Seven people shot dead and twelve wounded in bikie shootout between rival bikie gangs the Bandidos and Comancheros in the Sydney suburb of Milperra.
- 1987 – The Australia Telescope Compact Array is opened.
General images
Topics
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 2 September 2024, there are 204,584 articles within the scope of WikiProject Australia, of which 593 are featured and 882 are good articles. This makes up 2.97% of the articles on Wikipedia, 5.38% of all featured articles and lists, and 2.2% of all good articles (see WP:AUSFG). Including non-article pages, such as talk pages, redirects, categories, etc., there are 522,752 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