Thomas Family Web Site

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cherren@netspace.net.au
Web site designed
and developed by
 Warren Thomas

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Last Revised 22.09.2006

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AUSTRALIA
Our Home & Our Sanctuary

Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the world's smallest continent

The continent of Australia has been inhabited for more than 42,000 years by Indigenous Australians. After sporadic visits by fishermen from the north and by European explorers and merchants starting in the seventeenth century, the eastern half of the continent was claimed by the British in 1770 and officially settled through as the colony of New South Wales on in 1788. As the population grew and new areas were explored, another five largely self-governing Crown Colonies were successively established over the course of the nineteenth century.
On 1 January 1901, the six colonies federated and the Commonwealth of Australia was formed. Since federation, Australia has maintained a stable liberal democratic political system and remains a Commonwealth Realm. The capital city is Canberra although the current national population of around 20.6 million is concentrated mainly in the large coastal cities of Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide.
Origin and history of the name
The name Australia is derived from the Latin Australis, meaning of the South. Legends of an "unknown land of the south" (terra australis incognita)

The name "Australia" was popularised by the 1814 work A Voyage to Terra Australis by the navigator Matthew Flinders who was the first person to circumnavigate Australia. Despite its title, which reflected the view of the Admiralty, Flinders used the word "Australia" in the book, which was widely read and gave the term general currency. Governor Lachlan Macquarie of New Soth Wales subsequently used the word in his dispatches to England. In 1817, he recommended that it be officially adopted. In 1824, the British Admiralty agreed that the continent should be known officially as Australia.

Australia consists of six states, two major mainland territories, and other minor territories. The states are New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia Tasmania, Victoria and Western Australia. The two major mainland territories are the Northern Territory and the Australian Capital Territory.