Australia
Australia, island continent
located southeast of Asia and forming, with the nearby island
of Tasmania, the Commonwealth of Australia, a self-governing
member of the Commonwealth of Nations. The continent is
bounded on the north by the Timor Sea, the Arafura Sea, and
the Torres Strait; on the east by the Coral Sea and the Tasman
Sea; on the south by the Bass Strait and the Indian Ocean; and
on the west by the Indian Ocean. The commonwealth extends for
about 4000 km (about 2500 mi) from east to west and for about
3700 km (about 2300 mi) from north to south. Its coastline
measures some 25,760 km (about 16,010 mi). The area of the
commonwealth is 7,682,300 sq km (2,966,200 sq mi), and the
area of the continent alone is 7,614,500 sq km (2,939,974 sq
mi), making Australia the smallest continent in the world, but
the sixth largest country.
The
Commonwealth of Australia is made up of six states---New South
Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria, and
Western Australia---and two territories---the Australian
Capital Territory and the Northern Territory. The external
dependencies of Australia are the Territory of Ashmore and
Cartier Islands, the Australian Antarctic Territory, Christmas
Island, the Territory of Cocos Islands (also called the
Keeling Islands), the Coral Sea Islands Territory, the
Territory of Heard Island and McDonald Islands, and Norfolk
Island.
Official name: Commonwealth of Australia
Capital: Canberra
Koala
A dietary specialist, the koala, obtains most of its
nourishment from the leaves of just half a dozen species of
eucalyptus in its home forests of eastern Australia. The
leaves, high in fiber and rich in the aromatic chemicals
familiar to anyone who has ever sucked a cough drop, require
intensive processing to release their nutrients and render
their toxins harmless. A koala's gut has an enormous
appendix-four times as long as its body-in which microbes
busily digest its leafy diet. At weaning time, a baby koala
receives these necessary microbes by eating a special fecal
pap produced by its doting mother.
Red kangaroo
Humanity's negative impact on
wildlife-especially on larger mammals and birds-has become a
sad cliché. Still, some species, such as the coyote and
white-tailed deer in North America, have increased in numbers
in response to people. In Australia, the red kangaroo has
similarly prospered. Sheep ranchers favor this largest of the
continent's native mammals by converting woodlands to
grasslands, providing sources of permanent water, and fencing
out or killing the dingo. Even though it may be persecuted by
the same ranchers as a competitor of their livestock, the
kangaroo has benefited overall, and its population stands in
the millions.
Sydney opera house
The gleaming white sails of
the Sydney opera house grace port Jackson, the city's superb
natural harbor. The impressive cultural center was designed by
a Danish architect and is recognized worldwide as a symbol of
this thriving Australian City. Sydney Harbor Bridge, another
of Sydney's landmarks, connects the north shore of the bay
with the downtown area.
Australian aborigines
The Australian aborigines
are a group of slender people with brown skin. They have brown
eyes and dark wavy hair, and many of the men have beards. When
the first Europeans went to Australia to live, there were
about 300,000 aborigines there, they were divided into 500
tribes, each with its own language. Each tribe was a related
family group and lived in its own area.
The aborigines have been in Australia for at least 10,000
years. No one knows for sure, but they probably came from the
mountains of southern Asia. Perhaps they left there because
there were too many people living in their area. This is
called population pressure. Scientists think that at one time
Australia was connected to Asia by a land bridge. The
aborigines traveled south by land. Then there were changes in
the Earth and the land between Australia and Asia became
islands. The aborigines were cut off from the rest of the
world for thousands of years.
Australia was a difficult land to live in. It is huge, but
it has no large river systems. Most of the country receives
less than 25 centimeters of rain per year. However, the
aborigines learned to live in the desert. Each tribe had its
own watering hole. They learned to hunt animals and insects
for food. They made flour from grass seeds. In the cold areas
they made warm clothes from kangaroo skin. They usually slept
outdoors by a fire with their pet dogs nearby. They probably
brought these dogs with them from Asia. The dogs are very
different from the native Australian animals.
Religion was very important
in the lives of the aborigines. They had stories about the
creation of the Earth, the stars, and the moon. They believed
that human beings never died, but became a part of nature.
They passed down their stories from one generation to the
next. Parents taught their children these beliefs, and the
children taught their children. They call these ancient
beliefs that they learned from their ancestors the
“dreaming”or the “dream time”.
The aborigines invented the boomerang. It is a curved
throwing stick that they used for hunting and for war. The
boomerang is thin, light, and well balanced. When someone
throw a boomerang, it completes a circle and returns to the
thrower.
Life was very difficult for aborigines because of the desert
climate. Yet their lives were rich in art. They carved and
painted designs on their boomerangs and other objects. They
also painted on bark. They made beautiful cave paintings and
rock carvings.
The Europeans killed many of
the aborigines, many died from diseases that the Europeans
brought. Others were driven from their homelands and many died
of hunger. Today, there are only about 140,000 aborigines
left. But their numbers are increasing. Many of them work on
sheep and cattle stations, (Australians use the word station
for a farm that raises animals.) Evonne Goolagong ,an
international tennis star, is part aborigine.
It might be easy to forget about the aborigines in Australia
because most of the population is European. However, there is
one thing to make us remember them. There are thousands of
aborigine place names. When we see towns called Wooloomooloo,
Wagga Wagga, Toowoomba, or Murwillumbah, we know that the
aborigines have made a contribution to Australian life.
