The continent includes a continental shelf overlain by shallow seas which divide it into several landmasses—the Arafura Sea and Torres Strait between mainland Australia and New Guinea, and Bass Strait between mainland Australia and Tasmania. [113][114] Melbourne also ranked highly in the world's most liveable city list,[115] and is a leading financial centre in the Asia-Pacific region. in the Geography Talk group, connecting trivia lovers together. The lowest point is the dry bed of Lake Eyre, South Australia, which is 15 metres below sea level. Most of Australia and Oceania is under the Pacific, a vast body of water that is larger than all the Earth’s continental landmasses and islands combined. [42] More recent research points to earlier arrival, possibly 65,000 years ago. [76], Due to the spread of animals, fungi and plants across the single Pleistocene landmass the separate lands have a related biota. Ice cap at top of Puncak Jaya in Papua (1972). The Outer Banda Arc was accreted along the northwestern edge the continent; it includes the islands of Timor, Tanimbar, and Seram. Reverence for the land and oral traditions are emphasized. [7][8], Archaeological terminology for this region has changed repeatedly. All the continents of the world start and end with the same alphabet if you consider North and South Americas as one continent. [35][36], The Australian continent and Sunda were points of early human migrations after leaving Africa. In New Guinea, the climate is mostly monsoonal (December to March), southeast monsoon (May to October), and tropical rainforest with slight seasonal temperature variation. It is also the lowest, the flattest and (apart from Antarctica) the driest. Anyway, lately, about 170 million years ago, Pangaea began breaking up again, at first in two large pieces. 1 synonym for Australia: Commonwealth of Australia. With a total land area of 8.56 million square kilometres (3,310,000 sq mi), the Australian continent is the smallest, and second-lowest human inhabited (after Antarctica) continent on Earth. Although New Guinea is the most northerly part of the continent, and could be expected to be the most tropical in climate, the altitude of the New Guinea highlands is such that a great many animals and plants that were once common across Australia–New Guinea now survive only in the tropical highlands where they are severely threatened by population growth. Typical Southern Hemisphere flora include the conifers Podocarpus (eastern Australia and New Guinea), the rainforest emergents Araucaria (eastern Australia and New Guinea), Nothofagus (New Guinea and Tasmania) and Agathis (northern Queensland and New Guinea), as well as tree ferns and several species of Eucalyptus. Trade with Asia increased and a post-war immigration program received more than 6.5 million migrants from every continent. [116][117], Papua New Guinea is rich in natural resources, which account for two-thirds of their export earnings. [131][132][citation needed] The divergence and evolution that has occurred in the ensuing centuries has resulted in a distinctive Australian culture. [89] Other religions in the region include Islam, Buddhism and Hinduism, which are prominent minority religions in Australia. [107] In 2015, there were 7.4 million visitor arrivals. [64] Captain Arthur Phillip led the First Fleet of 11 ships and about 850 convicts into Sydney on 26 January 1788. The theory of balancing land has been documented as early as the 5th century on maps by Macrobius, who uses the term Australis on his maps. For most of the time since then, Australia–New Guinea remained a continuous landmass. In the quest for Terra Australis, Spanish explorations in the 17th century, such as the expedition led by the Portuguese navigator Pedro Fernandes de Queirós, discovered the Pitcairn and Vanuatu archipelagos, and sailed the Torres Strait between Australia and New Guinea, named after navigator Luís Vaz de Torres, who was the first European to explore the Strait. Before the 1970s, the single Pleistocene landmass was called Australasia, derived from the Latin australis, meaning "southern", although this word is most often used for a wider region that includes lands like New Zealand that are not on the same continental shelf. The term Australasia is … Even today, pockets of remnant vegetation remain in the cool uplands, some species not much changed from the Gondwanan forms of 60 or 90 million years ago. New Guinea has a rich diversity of coral life and 1,200 species of fish have been found. Lachlan River. They migrated from Africa to Asia around 70,000 years ago[41] and arrived in Australia at least 50,000 years ago, based on archaeological evidence. The earliest known use of the name Australia in Latinwas in 1545, when the word appears in a woodcut illustration of the globe titled "Sphere of the Winds" contained in an astrological te… For Australia–New Guinea, it brought a marked intensification of the drying trend. The continent of Australia, sometimes known in technical contexts by the names Sahul , Australinea, or Meganesia to distinguish it from the country of Australia, consists of the landmasses which sit on Australia's continental plate. It is situated in the geographical region of Oceania, Australia is the smallest of the seven traditional continents. Australia is one of the continents most affected and experiences extensive droughts alongside considerable wet periods.[88]. Though PNG is filled with resources, the lack of country's development led foreign countries to take over few sites and continued foreign demand for PNG's resources and as a result, the United States constructed an oil company and began to export in 2004 and this was the largest project in PNG's history. The Lachlan River is the principal tributary of Murrumbidgee River. [53] His ideas were later expanded by Ptolemy (2nd century AD), who believed that the lands of the Northern Hemisphere should be balanced by land in the south. Synonyms for Australia in Free Thesaurus. Carlos Pedro Vairo, TERRA AUSTRALIS Historical Charts of Patagonia, Tierra del Fuego and Antarctica. [70], Following the 1998 commencement of reforms across Indonesia, Papua and other Indonesian provinces received greater regional autonomy. However, the continent of Australia/Oceania still holds a respectable amount of serious mountains due to the contributions from the "Oceania" part in its name. [90] Many Papuans combine their Christian faith with traditional indigenous beliefs and practices. No. [126][127] Within Australian political culture, the Coalition is considered centre-right and the Labor Party is considered centre-left.[128]. Immigration to Australia have brought overseas languages such as Italian, Greek, Arabic, Filipino, Mandarin, Vietnamese and Spanish, among others. [68], The bombing of Darwin on 19 February 1942 was the largest single attack ever mounted by a foreign power on Australia. [48] Trade between New Guinea and neighboring Indonesian islands was documented as early as the seventh century, and archipelagic rule of New Guinea by the 13th. Where then, does that leave Australia? It is the world's smallest continent whose total area is 7,682,300 square kilometers. [50] Recent archaeological research suggests that 50,000 years ago people may have occupied sites in the highlands at New Guinean altitudes of up to 2,000 m (6,600 ft), rather than being restricted to warmer coastal areas. [24] The lands were joined with Antarctica as part of the southern supercontinent Gondwana until the plate began to drift north about 96 million years ago. It has extremes of weather, a stunning variety of flora and fauna, snow-capped mountains, vast stretches of deserts, frightening marshes and fertile flatland. Papua New Guinea became self-governing on 1 December 1973 and achieved independence on 16 September 1975. Continent name generator . During this time, the continent experienced numerous changes in climate, but the overall trend was towards greater aridity. The collision also pushed up the islands of Wallacea, which served as island 'stepping-stones' that allowed plants from Southeast Asia's rainforests to colonise New Guinea, and some plants from Australia–New Guinea to move into Southeast Asia. Because of its central location on its tectonic plate Australia doesn't have any active volcanic regions, the only continent with this distinction. Cloudflare Ray ID: 6533854859752014 Australia and its territories are home to around 800 species of bird;[80] 45% of these are endemic to Australia. For the region, see, Continental landmass on the Australian Plate. In 2006 Australia joined the Asian Football Confederation and qualified for the 2010 and 2014 World Cups as an Asian entrant. Papua New Guinea is one of the few cultures in Oceania to practice the tradition of bride price. [77] There are over 300 bird species in West Papua, of which at least 20 are unique to the ecoregion, and some live only in very restricted areas. Bird life also flourished—in particular, the songbirds (order Passeriformes, suborder Passeri) are thought to have evolved 50 million years ago in the part of Gondwana that later became Australia, New Zealand, New Guinea, and Antarctica, before radiating into a great number of different forms and then spreading around the globe.[86]. [146][147][148], Australia has hosted two Summer Olympic Games: Melbourne 1956 and Sydney 2000. [141] Examples of ancient Aboriginal rock artworks can be found throughout the continent – notably in national parks such as those of the UNESCO listed sites at Uluru and Kakadu National Park in the Northern Territory, but also within protected parks in urban areas such as at Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park in Sydney. The term Oceania is also used to describe this region in order to differentiate it from the country of Australia. Traditional religions are often animist, found in New Guinea. [14] Another biologist, Richard Dawkins, coined the name Australinea in 2004. In the financial year 2014/15, tourism represented 3.0% of Australia's GDP contributing A$47.5 billion to the national economy. The constitutional convention, which prepared the draft constitution, and Australia, the outgoing metropolitan power, had thought that Papua New Guinea would not remain a monarchy. The name "Sahul" takes its name from the Sahul Shelf, which is part of the continental shelf of the Australian continent. [22], Geological forces such as tectonic uplift of mountain ranges or clashes between tectonic plates occurred mainly in Australia's early history, when it was still a part of Gondwana. Prominent features of the Australian flora are adaptations to aridity and fire which include scleromorphy and serotiny. [105] In 2012, Australia was the 12th largest national economy by nominal GDP and the 19th-largest measured by PPP-adjusted GDP. Australia in brief Destination Australia, a Nations Online country profile of the "unknown southern land." The Battle of Buna–Gona, between November 1942 and January 1943, set the tone for the bitter final stages of the New Guinea campaign, which persisted into 1945. John Noble Wilford: The Mapmakers, the Story of the Great Pioneers in Cartography from Antiquity to Space Age, p. 139, Vintage Books, Random House 1982. With the encouragement of Queensland, in 1884, a British protectorate had been proclaimed over the southern coast of New Guinea and its adjacent islands. Australia is the world’s smallest continent and second least populated. Please enable Cookies and reload the page. The country joined the United Nations (UN) on 10 October 1975. The continent includes mainland Australia, Tasmania, and the island of New Guinea, which consists of Papua New Guinea and Western New Guinea (Papua and West Papua, the provinces of Indonesia). [135][citation needed][136][citation needed] The Australian Museum in Sydney and the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne are the oldest and largest museums in the continent, as well as in Oceania. In most parts of the world, Kentucky Fried Chicken is Kentucky Fried Chicken. Australia is a lonely continent on the surface of the earth. [79] This high level of endemism can be attributed to the continent's long geographic isolation, tectonic stability, and the effects of an unusual pattern of climate change on the soil and flora over geological time. Spring in the apple orchards of Tasmania. There is no other name for the continent of Australia. https://www.thoughtco.com/continents-ranked-by-size-and-population-4163436 [31] Australia, the largest landmass in the continent, is highly urbanised,[32] and has the world's 14th-largest economy with the second-highest human development index globally. [121][122], Australia is a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy[123] with Elizabeth II at its apex as the Queen of Australia, a role that is distinct from her position as monarch of the other Commonwealth realms. [118][119] Papua New Guinea is classified as a developing economy by the International Monetary Fund. • 'International Migration' in International migrant stock Laurasia in the north became Europe, Asia, and North America. When South America eventually separated from Antarctica, the development of the cold Antarctic Circumpolar Current changed weather patterns across the world. It runs through the … Rugby league is the most popular sport in Papua New Guinea (especially in the highlands), which also unofficially holds the title as the national sport. [97][98] Melbourne is also fairly multicultural, having the largest Greek-speaking population outside of Europe,[99] and the second largest Asian population in Australia after Sydney. The name "Sahul" takes its name from the Sahul Shelf, which is part of the continental shelf of the Australian continent. Wikimedia Commons A map of Pangea 200 million years ago, with tectonic plate boundaries in white. [108], Mercer Quality of Living Survey ranks Sydney tenth in the world in terms of quality of living,[111] making it one of the most livable cities. Where other continents had, This page was last edited on 17 May 2021, at 18:20. [9], In 1984 W. Filewood suggested the name Meganesia, meaning "great island" or "great island-group", for both the Pleistocene continent and the present-day lands,[11] and this name has been widely accepted by biologists. [55] Scientists, such as Gerardus Mercator (1569)[56] and Alexander Dalrymple as late as 1767 argued for its existence, with such arguments as that there should be a large landmass in the south as a counterweight to the known landmasses in the Northern Hemisphere. If you are at an office or shared network, you can ask the network administrator to run a scan across the network looking for misconfigured or infected devices. For many centuries Europeans believed there must be a vast land in the southern hemisphere, variously called ‘Terra Australis Incognita’ or ‘Unknown South Land’. In addition to being the smallest continent, Australia is the flattest and the second-driest, … Australia is also referred to as Oceania and in conjunction with Zealandia. The first known Europeans to sight New Guinea were probably the Portuguese and Spanish navigators sailing in the South Pacific in the early part of the 16th century. [33][34] Australia also has the world's 9th largest immigrant population. [149], This article is about the landmasses on the continental plate. [62] On 29 April, Cook and crew made their first landfall on the mainland of the continent at a place now known as the Kurnell Peninsula. Its capital city is Canberra, and its most important economic and cultural centers are Sydney and Melbourne. When the last glacial period ended in about 10,000 BC, rising sea levels formed Bass Strait, separating Tasmania from the mainland. These include the grey-banded munia, Vogelkop bowerbird, and the king bird-of-paradise. Nonetheless, minimum temperatures are moderated. A tropical rainforest in Papua New Guinea. Gondwana formed when Earth’s ancient supercontinent, Pangea, split into two fragments. The continent primarily sits on the Indo-Australian Plate. [54], Terra Australis, a hypothetical continent first posited in antiquity, appeared on maps between the 15th and 18th centuries. Papua New Guinea (along with the Solomon Islands) is unusual among Commonwealth realms in that governors-general are elected by the legislature, rather than chosen by the executive branch. Antonyms for Australia. Australia Continent Countries & Capitals, Currency with Code: Australia is the only continent covered by a single country. [96] Furthermore, 36 percent of the population reported having been born overseas, with top countries being Italy, Lebanon, Vietnam and Iraq, among others. [104] The Australian Securities Exchange in Sydney is the largest stock exchange in Australia and in the South Pacific. Albert-Marie-Ferdinand Anthiaume, "Un pilote et cartographe havrais au XVIe siècle: Guillaume Le Testu". – Country Digest", "What Did Australia Look Like When the First People Arrived? For many species, the primary refuge was the relatively cool and well-watered Great Dividing Range. Because the continent was more isolated than any other, very few outside species arrived to colonise, and unique native forms developed unimpeded. Your IP: 149.202.143.89 [92] Contact between Austronesian and Papuan resulted in several instances in mixed languages such as Maisin. Surrounded by the Arctic Ocean from the north, by the Pacific Ocean from the east and by the Indian Ocean from the south, it … The Queen is represented in Australia by the Governor-General at the federal level and by the Governors at the state level, who by convention act on the advice of her ministers. Elections in 1972 resulted in the formation of a ministry headed by Chief Minister Michael Somare, who pledged to lead the country to self-government and then to independence. However, Quebec, Canada, is another story. [47], Papuan habitation is estimated to have begun between 42,000 and 48,000 years ago in New Guinea. Among the fungi, the remarkable association between Cyttaria gunnii (one of the "golf-ball" fungi) and its associated trees in the genus Nothofagus is evidence of that drift: the only other places where this association is known are New Zealand and southern Argentina and Chile. Discussions on Oceania v Australia - Which is the Correct Name for the Continent Located in the South Pacific? Snow in Thredbo, a town in the Snowy Mountains. [145] The most popular sport in Australia is cricket, the most popular sport among Australian women is netball, while Australian rules football is the most popular sport in terms of spectatorship and television ratings. When sea levels were lower during the Pleistocene ice age, including the Last Glacial Maximum about 18,000 BC, they were connected by dry land. However, the name was used for a different place by the French before this. The highest point on the Australian mainland is Mount Kosciuszko, New South Wales, at 2228 metres above sea level. [72], Migration brought large numbers of southern and central Europeans to Australia for the first time. Australia, the smallest continent and one of the largest countries on Earth, lying between the Pacific and Indian oceans in the Southern Hemisphere. [106] Tourism in Australia is an important component of the Australian economy. Grassland in Queensland with mountains in background. Marsupials and monotremes also existed on other continents, but only in Australia–New Guinea did they out-compete the placental mammals and come to dominate. During the past 18,000[17] to 10,000 years, rising sea levels overflowed the lowlands and separated the continent into today's low-lying arid to semi-arid mainland and the two mountainous islands of New Guinea and Tasmania.[18]. [95] Sydney is the most multicultural city in Oceania, having more than 250 different languages spoken, with about 40 percent of residents speaking a language other than English at home. Australia is the smallest of the world's continents. [59] Dutch explorer Abel Janszoon Tasman circumnavigated and landed on parts of the Australian continental coast and discovered Van Diemen's Land (now Tasmania), New Zealand in 1642, and Fiji islands. From that point a system of federalism in Australia came into operation, entailing the establishment of an entirely new national government (the Commonwealth government) and an ongoing division of powers between that government and the States. Some say, with Australia, you get it all: a continent with its own tectonic plate, a country with a population density others can only dream of, and a massive island with a 30,000 km long beach. The founders, however, considered that imperial honours had a cachet. The Australian landmass's climate is mostly desert or semi-arid, with the southern coastal corners having a temperate climate, such as oceanic and humid subtropical climate in the east coast and Mediterranean climate in the west. You may need to download version 2.0 now from the Chrome Web Store. Pain, C.F., Villans, B.J., Roach, I.C., Worrall, L. & Wilford, J.R. (2012): Old, flat and red – Australia's distinctive landscape. Originally, it was applied to the south polar continent, or sixth continent, now known as Antarctica. In 2001, "Special Autonomy" status was granted to Papua province, although to date, implementation has been partial and often criticized. [60] He was the first known European explorer to reach these islands.[61]. [85], As the continent drifted north from Antarctica, a unique fauna, flora and mycobiota developed. Temperatures in Australia have ranged from above 50 °C (122 °F) to well below 0 °C (32 °F). The name Australia has been applied to two continents. Finally, despite the fact that the continent was already very old and thus relatively infertile, there are dispersed areas of high fertility. [45] Remains found at Mungo suggest one of the world's oldest known cremations, thus indicating early evidence for religious ritual among humans. 2019. ", "Geographic Distribution of the Population", World Economic Outlook Database-April 2015, "Australia: World Audit Democracy Profile", "Main Features – Cultural Diversity Article", "Early human settlement of Sahul was not an accident", "The epic ocean journey that took Stone Age people to Australia", "An Aboriginal Australian Genome Reveals Separate Human Dispersals into Asia", "Sequencing Uncovers a 9,000 Mile Walkabout", "Majapahit Overseas Empire, Digital Atlas of Indonesian History", "Early humans lived in PNG highlands 50,000 years ago", "The Armchair Discovery of the Unknown Southern Continent: Gerardus Mercator, Philosophical Pretensions and a Competitive Trade", "Cook's Journal: Daily Entries, 22 April 1770", http://southseas.nla.gov.au/journals/cook/17700429.html, "Bombing of Darwin: 70 years on – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)", "Wartime Issue 23 – New Guinea Offensive | Australian War Memorial", "Australia Burning: Fire Ecology, Policy and Management Issues", WWF: Bird wonders of New Guinea's western-most province, Christianity in its Global Context, 1970–2020 Society, Religion, and Mission, "Main Features – Cultural Diversity in Australia", "Papua New Guinea's incredible linguistic diversity", "Census 2016: Migrants make a cosmopolitan country", http://www.oecd.org/gov/regional-policy/50242959.pdf, Field listing – GDP (official exchange rate), "Statement on Monetary Policy (November 2013)", "Tourism Satellite Account 2014–15:Key Figures", "2014 Quality of Living Worldwide City Rankings – Mercer Survey", http://www.sbs.com.au/yourlanguage/italian/en/article/2016/08/30/happy-birthday-melbourne-181-and-still-kicking, The Global Financial Centres Index 14 (September 2013), 2012 Global Cities Index and Emerging Cities Outlook, World Economic Outlook Database, October 2015, "Raising the profile of PNG in Australia", Asian Development Outlook 2015: Financing Asia’s Future Growth, "Yolngu are People 2: They're not Clip Art", http://australianmuseum.net.au/A-short-history-of-the-Australian-Museum, "Where to party in Australia on New Year's Eve", "Aboriginal Heritage walk: Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park", List of countries where Arabic is an official language, Lower Gangetic Plains moist deciduous forests, Northwestern Himalayan alpine shrub and meadows, Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt pine–oak forests, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Australia_(continent)&oldid=1023676238, Articles with dead external links from November 2010, Short description is different from Wikidata, All Wikipedia articles written in Australian English, Articles with unsourced statements from August 2020, Wikipedia articles with WORLDCATID identifiers, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, While much of the rest of the world underwent significant cooling and thus loss of species diversity, Australia–New Guinea was drifting north at such a pace that the overall global cooling effect was roughly equalled by its gradual movement toward the. A 1958 government leaflet assured readers that unskilled non-British migrants were needed for "labour on rugged projects ...work which is not generally acceptable to Australians or British workers". The New Guinea Highlands are one of the few regions close to the equator that experience snowfall, which occurs in the most elevated parts of the mainland. The ocean straits between the islands were narrow enough to allow plant dispersal, but served as an effective barrier to exchange of land mammals between Australia–New Guinea and Asia. At its largest, the continent included Tierra del Fuego, separated from South America by a small strait; New Guinea; and what would come to be called Australia.
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