Queensland
Queensland is the second-largest and third-most populous state in the Commonwealth of Australia. Situated in the north-east of the country, it is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Australia and New South Wales to the west, south-west and south respectively. To the east, Queensland is bordered by the Coral Pacific Ocean. To its north is the Torres Strait, with Papua New Guinea located less than 200 km across it from the mainland; the state is the world's sixth-largest sub-national entity, with an area of 1,852,642 square kilometres. As of 15 May 2018, Queensland has a population of 5,000,000, concentrated along the coast and in the state's South East; the capital and largest city in the state is Australia's third-largest city. Referred to as the "Sunshine State", Queensland is home to 10 of Australia's 30 largest cities and is the nation's third-largest economy. Tourism in the state, fuelled by its warm tropical climate, is a major industry. Queensland was first inhabited by Torres Strait Islanders.
The first European to land in Queensland was Dutch navigator Willem Janszoon in 1606, who explored the west coast of the Cape York Peninsula near present-day Weipa. In 1770, Lieutenant James Cook claimed the east coast of Australia for the Kingdom of Great Britain; the colony of New South Wales was founded in 1788 by Governor Arthur Phillip at Sydney. Queensland was explored in subsequent decades until the establishment of a penal colony at Brisbane in 1824 by John Oxley. Penal transportation ceased in 1839 and free settlement was allowed from 1842; the state was named in honour of Queen Victoria, who on 6 June 1859 signed Letters Patent separating the colony from New South Wales. Queensland Day is celebrated annually statewide on 6 June. Queensland was one of the six colonies which became the founding states of Australia with federation on 1 January 1901; the history of Queensland spans thousands of years, encompassing both a lengthy indigenous presence, as well as the eventful times of post-European settlement.
The north-eastern Australian region was explored by Dutch and French navigators before being encountered by Lieutenant James Cook in 1770. The state has witnessed frontier warfare between European settlers and Indigenous inhabitants, as well as the exploitation of cheap Kanaka labour sourced from the South Pacific through a form of forced recruitment known at the time as "blackbirding"; the Australian Labor Party has its origin as a formal organisation in Queensland and the town of Barcaldine is the symbolic birthplace of the party. June 2009 marked the 150th anniversary of its creation as a separate colony from New South Wales. A rare record of early settler life in north Queensland can be seen in a set of ten photographic glass plates taken in the 1860s by Richard Daintree, in the collection of the National Museum of Australia; the Aboriginal occupation of Queensland is thought to predate 50,000 BC via boat or land bridge across Torres Strait, became divided into over 90 different language groups.
During the last ice age Queensland's landscape became more arid and desolate, making food and other supplies scarce. This led to the world's first seed-grinding technology. Warming again made the land hospitable, which brought high rainfall along the eastern coast, stimulating the growth of the state's tropical rainforests. In February 1606, Dutch navigator Willem Janszoon landed near the site of what is now Weipa, on the western shore of Cape York; this was the first recorded landing of a European in Australia, it marked the first reported contact between European and Aboriginal Australian people. The region was explored by French and Spanish explorers prior to the arrival of Lieutenant James Cook in 1770. Cook claimed the east coast under instruction from King George III of the United Kingdom on 22 August 1770 at Possession Island, naming Eastern Australia, including Queensland,'New South Wales'; the Aboriginal population declined after a smallpox epidemic during the late 18th century. In 1823, John Oxley, a British explorer, sailed north from what is now Sydney to scout possible penal colony sites in Gladstone and Moreton Bay.
At Moreton Bay, he found the Brisbane River. He established a settlement at what is now Redcliffe; the settlement known as Edenglassie, was transferred to the current location of the Brisbane city centre. Edmund Lockyer discovered outcrops of coal along the banks of the upper Brisbane River in 1825. In 1839 transportation of convicts was ceased, culminating in the closure of the Brisbane penal settlement. In 1842 free settlement was permitted. In 1847, the Port of Maryborough was opened as a wool port; the first free immigrant ship to arrive in Moreton Bay was the Artemisia, in 1848. In 1857, Queensland's first lighthouse was built at Cape Moreton. A war, sometimes called a "war of extermination", erupted between Aborigines and settlers in colonial Queensland; the Frontier War was notable for being the most bloody in Australia due to Queensland's larger pre-contact indigenous population when compared to the other Australian colonies. About 1,500 European settlers and their alli
Bushfires in Australia
Bushfires frequenT t events during the warmer months of the year, due to Australia's hot, dry climate. Each year, such fires impact extensive areas. On one hand, they can cause property loss of human life. Certain native flora in Australia have evolved to rely on bushfires as a means of reproduction, fire events are an interwoven and an essential part of the ecology of the continent. For thousands of years, Indigenous Australians have used fire to foster grasslands for hunting and to clear tracks through dense vegetation. Major firestorms that result in severe loss of life are named based on the day on which they occur, such as Ash Wednesday and Black Saturday; some of the most intense and deadly bushfires occur during droughts and heat waves, such as the 2009 Southern Australia heat wave, which precipitated the conditions during the 2009 Black Saturday bushfires in which 173 people lost their lives. Other major conflagrations include the 1983 Ash Wednesday bushfires, the 2003 Eastern Victorian alpine bushfires and the 2006 December Bushfires.
In 2013 the non-profit Climate Council reported that Global warming is increasing the frequency and severity of bushfires. The word "bushfire" builds on the concept of "the bush". Bushfires in Australia are defined as uncontrolled, non-structural fires burning in a grass, bush, or forested area. Australia, being a geographically and meteorogically diverse continent, experiences many types of bushfires. There are two main categories, depending on local topography. Hilly/mountainous fires – burn in hilly, mountainous or alpine areas which are densely forested; the land is less accessible and not conducive to agriculture, thus many of these densely forested areas have been saved from deforestation and are protected by national and other parks. The steep terrain increases the intensity of a firestorm. Where settlements are located in hilly or mountainous areas, bushfires can pose a threat to both life and property. Flat/grassland fires – burn along flat plains or areas of small undulation, predominantly covered in grasses or scrubland.
These fires can move fanned by high winds in flat topography, they consume the small amounts of fuel/vegetation available. These fires pose less of a threat to settlements as they reach the same intensity seen in major firestorms as the land is flat, the fires are easier to map and predict, the terrain is more accessible for firefighting personnel. Many regions of predominantly flat terrain in Australia have been completely deforested for agriculture, reducing the fuel loads which would otherwise facilitate fires in these areas. Common causes of bushfires include lightning, arcing from overhead power lines, accidental ignition in the course of agricultural clearing and welding activities, campfires and dropped matches, sparks from machinery, controlled burn escapes; the natural fire regime in Australia was altered by the arrival of humans. Fires became more frequent, fire-loving species—notably eucalypts—greatly expanded their range, it is assumed that a good deal of this change came about as the result of deliberate action by early humans, setting fires to clear undergrowth or drive game.
Plants have evolved a variety of strategies to survive bushfires, or encourage fire as a way to eliminate competition from less fire-tolerant species. Some native animals are adept at surviving bushfires. In 2009, a standardised Fire Danger Rating was adopted by all Australian states. During the fire season the Bureau of Meteorology provides fire weather forecasts and by considering the predicted weather including temperature, relative humidity, wind speed and dryness of vegetation, fire agencies determine the appropriate Fire Danger Rating. In 2010, following a national review of the bush fire danger ratings, new trigger points for each rating were introduced for grassland areas in most jurisdictions. See for example the following glossaryFire Danger Ratings are a feature of weather forecasts and alert the community to the actions they should take in preparation of the day. Ratings are broadcast via newspapers, radio, TV, the internet; the Australasian Fire Authorities Council is the peak body responsible for representing fire, emergency services and land management agencies in the Australasian region.
The Rural Fire Service is a volunteer-based firefighting agency and operates as part of the Queensland Fire and Emergency Services. The New South Wales Rural Fire Service is a volunteer-based firefighting,agency and statutory body of the Government of New South Wales; the Country Fire Service is a volunteer based fire service in the state of South Australia. The CFS operates as a part of Emergency Services Commission. Bushfires tend to occur near Adelaide. In Victoria, the Country Fire Authority provides firefighting and other emergency services to country areas and regional townships within the state, as well as large portions of the outer suburban areas and growth corridors of Melbourne not covered by the Metropolitan Fire Brigade. Responsibility for fire suppression and management, including planned burning on public land such as State Forests and National Parks, which makes up about 7.1 million hectares or about one third of the State, sits with the Department of Environment, Water an
Flowering plant
The flowering plants known as angiosperms, Angiospermae or Magnoliophyta, are the most diverse group of land plants, with 64 orders, 416 families 13,164 known genera and c. 369,000 known species. Like gymnosperms, angiosperms are seed-producing plants. However, they are distinguished from gymnosperms by characteristics including flowers, endosperm within the seeds, the production of fruits that contain the seeds. Etymologically, angiosperm means a plant; the term comes from the Greek words sperma. The ancestors of flowering plants diverged from gymnosperms in the Triassic Period, 245 to 202 million years ago, the first flowering plants are known from 160 mya, they diversified extensively during the Early Cretaceous, became widespread by 120 mya, replaced conifers as the dominant trees from 100 to 60 mya. Angiosperms differ from other seed plants in several ways, described in the table below; these distinguishing characteristics taken together have made the angiosperms the most diverse and numerous land plants and the most commercially important group to humans.
Angiosperm stems are made up of seven layers. The amount and complexity of tissue-formation in flowering plants exceeds that of gymnosperms; the vascular bundles of the stem are arranged such that the phloem form concentric rings. In the dicotyledons, the bundles in the young stem are arranged in an open ring, separating a central pith from an outer cortex. In each bundle, separating the xylem and phloem, is a layer of meristem or active formative tissue known as cambium. By the formation of a layer of cambium between the bundles, a complete ring is formed, a regular periodical increase in thickness results from the development of xylem on the inside and phloem on the outside; the soft phloem becomes crushed, but the hard wood persists and forms the bulk of the stem and branches of the woody perennial. Owing to differences in the character of the elements produced at the beginning and end of the season, the wood is marked out in transverse section into concentric rings, one for each season of growth, called annual rings.
Among the monocotyledons, the bundles are more numerous in the young stem and are scattered through the ground tissue. They once formed the stem increases in diameter only in exceptional cases; the characteristic feature of angiosperms is the flower. Flowers show remarkable variation in form and elaboration, provide the most trustworthy external characteristics for establishing relationships among angiosperm species; the function of the flower is to ensure fertilization of the ovule and development of fruit containing seeds. The floral apparatus may arise terminally from the axil of a leaf; as in violets, a flower arises singly in the axil of an ordinary foliage-leaf. More the flower-bearing portion of the plant is distinguished from the foliage-bearing or vegetative portion, forms a more or less elaborate branch-system called an inflorescence. There are two kinds of reproductive cells produced by flowers. Microspores, which will divide to become pollen grains, are the "male" cells and are borne in the stamens.
The "female" cells called megaspores, which will divide to become the egg cell, are contained in the ovule and enclosed in the carpel. The flower may consist only of these parts, as in willow, where each flower comprises only a few stamens or two carpels. Other structures are present and serve to protect the sporophylls and to form an envelope attractive to pollinators; the individual members of these surrounding structures are known as petals. The outer series is green and leaf-like, functions to protect the rest of the flower the bud; the inner series is, in general, white or brightly colored, is more delicate in structure. It functions to attract bird pollinators. Attraction is effected by color and nectar, which may be secreted in some part of the flower; the characteristics that attract pollinators account for the popularity of flowers and flowering plants among humans. While the majority of flowers are perfect or hermaphrodite, flowering plants have developed numerous morphological and physiological mechanisms to reduce or prevent self-fertilization.
Heteromorphic flowers have short carpels and long stamens, or vice versa, so animal pollinators cannot transfer pollen to the pistil. Homomorphic flowers may employ a biochemical mechanism called self-incompatibility to discriminate between self and non-self pollen grains. In other species, the male and female parts are morphologically separated, developing on different flowers; the botanical term "Angiosperm", from the Ancient Greek αγγείον, angeíon and σπέρμα, was coined in the form Angiospermae by Paul Hermann in 1690, as the name of one of his primary divisions of the plant kingdom. This included flowering plants possessing seeds enclosed in capsules, distinguished from his Gymnospermae, or flowering plants with achenial or schizo-carpic fruits, the whole fruit or each of its pieces being here regarded as a seed and naked; the term and its antonym were maintained by Carl Linnaeus with the same sense, but with restricted application, in the names of the orders of his class Didynamia. Its use with any
Xanthorrhoea australis
Xanthorrhoea australis, the Grass tree, Southern grasstree, Austral grasstree or Black Boy is an Australian plant. It is the most seen species of the genus Xanthorrhoea, its trunk can grow up to several metres tall and is branched. In certain Aboriginal languages, it is called Baggup or Kawee. In Xanthorrhoeas, the main way to identify them is by looking at the cross-section of the leaves. In the case of the X. australis, the cross-section is a rough diamond shape, the colour of the leaves is a bluish-green. The species develops a rough trunk which may be branched and, coloured black, the result of bushfires; the trunk is able to grow up to over 3 metres in height with a width of up to 1 metre and may be branched. The bark is thick and corky; the plant is slow growing and trunks only start appearing after many years. The long, narrow leaves are crowded together at the tops of the trunks. X. Australis takes several years to flower, it does not always flower annually, but in the season after a bushfire it flowers prolifically.
The flowers appear on a spear-like spike. The flowers, with 6 petals cover 1⁄2–5⁄6 of the stem; the crown of leaves of X. australis will be spherical in shape, the point of each leaf marking the shape of the imagined sphere. The leaves crown the trunk in a crowded whorl of wiry leaves; the leaves are arranged in a spiral, forming an erect tuft when young and spreading as they mature, with the oldest leaves dying and forming a hanging skirt around the trunk. The blue-green needle-like leaves are 14 to 30 centimetres long and have a waxy coating. X. Australis has leaves which are softer and less rigid than other Xanthorrhoeas. Old leaves hang down forming a distinctive skirt-like feature that covers the fire-blackened trunk. X. australis flowers from July to December. Grass trees are very long-lived with some are estimated to be 350 to 450 years old; the species was first formally described by the botanist Robert Brown in 1810 as part of the work Prodromus Florae Novae Hollandiae. The genus name Xanthorrhoea is taken from the Greek words xanthos, meaning yellow, rheo, meaning to flow, a reference to the resin, obtained from these plants.
The species epithet australis, meaning southern, refers to the distribution of the species. This species can be found in the states of New South Wales, Australian Capital Territory, South Australia and Victoria, it is regarded as the most distributed all of the Xanthorroea species. It is able to survive in poor soils, is intolerant to phosphorus and is susceptible to the soil-borne disease Phytophthora cinnamomi. Indigenous Australians soaked the flowering spike in water to produce a sweet drink; the soft, white leaf bases were eaten as well as the growing point of the stem. The flower spike exudes a resin which could be used as an adhesive in the manufacture of tools and the stem used for the lower portion of a spear. Stems were used to make a base for a fire-drill to start a fire; the resin was collected and sent to commercial processors where it was made into lacquer for furniture of cabinet makers. Grass Tree Conservation Park Australian Native Plants Society Australian postage stamp featuring X. australis Images
Tasmania
Tasmania is an island state of Australia. It is located 240 km to the south of the Australian mainland, separated by Bass Strait; the state encompasses the main island of Tasmania, the 26th-largest island in the world, the surrounding 334 islands. The state has a population of around 526,700 as of March 2018. Just over forty percent of the population resides in the Greater Hobart precinct, which forms the metropolitan area of the state capital and largest city, Hobart. Tasmania's area is 68,401 km2, of which the main island covers 64,519 km2, it is promoted as a natural state, protected areas of Tasmania cover about 42% of its land area, which includes national parks and World Heritage Sites. Tasmania was the founding place of the first environmental political party in the world; the island is believed to have been occupied by indigenous peoples for 30,000 years before British colonisation. It is thought Aboriginal Tasmanians were separated from the mainland Aboriginal groups about 10,000 years ago when the sea rose to form Bass Strait.
The Aboriginal population is estimated to have been between 3,000 and 7,000 at the time of colonisation, but was wiped out within 30 years by a combination of violent guerrilla conflict with settlers known as the "Black War", intertribal conflict, from the late 1820s, the spread of infectious diseases to which they had no immunity. The conflict, which peaked between 1825 and 1831, led to more than three years of martial law, cost the lives of 1,100 Aboriginals and settlers; the island was permanently settled by Europeans in 1803 as a penal settlement of the British Empire to prevent claims to the land by the First French Empire during the Napoleonic Wars. The island was part of the Colony of New South Wales but became a separate, self-governing colony under the name Van Diemen's Land in 1825. 75,000 convicts were sent to Van Diemen's Land before transportation ceased in 1853. In 1854 the present Constitution of Tasmania was passed, the following year the colony received permission to change its name to Tasmania.
In 1901 it became a state through the process of the Federation of Australia. The state is named after Dutch explorer Abel Tasman, who made the first reported European sighting of the island on 24 November 1642. Tasman named the island Anthony van Diemen's Land after his sponsor Anthony van Diemen, the Governor of the Dutch East Indies; the name was shortened to Van Diemen's Land by the British. It was renamed Tasmania in honour of its first European discoverer on 1 January 1856. Tasmania was sometimes referred to as "Dervon," as mentioned in the Jerilderie Letter written by the notorious Australian bushranger Ned Kelly in 1879; the colloquial expression for the state is "Tassie". Tasmania is colloquially shortened to "Tas," when used in business names and website addresses. TAS is the Australia Post abbreviation for the state; the reconstructed Palawa kani language name for Tasmania is Lutriwita. The island was adjoined to the mainland of Australia until the end of the last glacial period about 10,000 years ago.
Much of the island is composed of Jurassic dolerite intrusions through other rock types, sometimes forming large columnar joints. Tasmania has the world's largest areas of dolerite, with many distinctive mountains and cliffs formed from this rock type; the central plateau and the southeast portions of the island are dolerites. Mount Wellington above Hobart is a good example. In the southern midlands as far south as Hobart, the dolerite is underlaid by sandstone and similar sedimentary stones. In the southwest, Precambrian quartzites were formed from ancient sea sediments and form strikingly sharp ridges and ranges, such as Federation Peak or Frenchmans Cap. In the northeast and east, continental granites can be seen, such as at Freycinet, similar to coastal granites on mainland Australia. In the northwest and west, mineral-rich volcanic rock can be seen at Mount Read near Rosebery, or at Mount Lyell near Queenstown. Present in the south and northwest is limestone with caves; the quartzite and dolerite areas in the higher mountains show evidence of glaciation, much of Australia's glaciated landscape is found on the Central Plateau and the Southwest.
Cradle Mountain, another dolerite peak, for example, was a nunatak. The combination of these different rock types contributes to scenery, distinct from any other region of the world. In the far southwest corner of the state, the geology is wholly quartzite, which gives the mountains the false impression of having snow-capped peaks year round. Evidence indicates the presence of Aborigines in Tasmania about 42,000 years ago. Rising sea levels cut Tasmania off from mainland Australia about 10,000 years ago and by the time of European contact, the Aboriginal people in Tasmania had nine major nations or ethnic groups. At the time of the British occupation and colonisation in 1803, the indigenous population was estimated at between 3,000 and 10,000. Historian Lyndall Ryan's analysis of population studies led her to conclude that there were about 7,000 spread throughout the island's nine nations. J. B. Plomley and Rhys Jones, settled on a figure of 3,000 to 4,000, they engaged in fire-stick farming, hunted game including kangaroo and wallabies, caught seals, mutton-birds and fish and lived as nine separate "nations" on the island, which they knew as "Trouwunna".
The first reported sighting of Tasmania by a European was on 24 November 1642 by Dutch explorer Abel Tasman, who landed at today's Blackman Bay. More than a century in 1772, a French expedition le
Synonym (taxonomy)
In scientific nomenclature, a synonym is a scientific name that applies to a taxon that goes by a different scientific name, although the term is used somewhat differently in the zoological code of nomenclature. For example, Linnaeus was the first to give a scientific name to the Norway spruce, which he called Pinus abies; this name is no longer in use: it is now a synonym of the current scientific name, Picea abies. Unlike synonyms in other contexts, in taxonomy a synonym is not interchangeable with the name of which it is a synonym. In taxonomy, synonyms have a different status. For any taxon with a particular circumscription and rank, only one scientific name is considered to be the correct one at any given time. A synonym cannot exist in isolation: it is always an alternative to a different scientific name. Given that the correct name of a taxon depends on the taxonomic viewpoint used a name, one taxonomist's synonym may be another taxonomist's correct name. Synonyms may arise whenever the same taxon is named more than once, independently.
They may arise when existing taxa are changed, as when two taxa are joined to become one, a species is moved to a different genus, a variety is moved to a different species, etc. Synonyms come about when the codes of nomenclature change, so that older names are no longer acceptable. To the general user of scientific names, in fields such as agriculture, ecology, general science, etc. A synonym is a name, used as the correct scientific name but, displaced by another scientific name, now regarded as correct, thus Oxford Dictionaries Online defines the term as "a taxonomic name which has the same application as another one, superseded and is no longer valid." In handbooks and general texts, it is useful to have synonyms mentioned as such after the current scientific name, so as to avoid confusion. For example, if the much advertised name change should go through and the scientific name of the fruit fly were changed to Sophophora melanogaster, it would be helpful if any mention of this name was accompanied by "".
Synonyms used in this way may not always meet the strict definitions of the term "synonym" in the formal rules of nomenclature which govern scientific names. Changes of scientific name have two causes: they may be taxonomic or nomenclatural. A name change may be caused by changes in the circumscription, position or rank of a taxon, representing a change in taxonomic, scientific insight. A name change may be due to purely nomenclatural reasons, that is, based on the rules of nomenclature. Speaking in general, name changes for nomenclatural reasons have become less frequent over time as the rules of nomenclature allow for names to be conserved, so as to promote stability of scientific names. In zoological nomenclature, codified in the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, synonyms are different scientific names of the same taxonomic rank that pertain to that same taxon. For example, a particular species could, over time, have had two or more species-rank names published for it, while the same is applicable at higher ranks such as genera, orders, etc.
In each case, the earliest published name is called the senior synonym, while the name is the junior synonym. In the case where two names for the same taxon have been published the valid name is selected accorded to the principle of the first reviser such that, for example, of the names Strix scandiaca and Strix noctua, both published by Linnaeus in the same work at the same date for the taxon now determined to be the snowy owl, the epithet scandiaca has been selected as the valid name, with noctua becoming the junior synonym. One basic principle of zoological nomenclature is that the earliest published name, the senior synonym, by default takes precedence in naming rights and therefore, unless other restrictions interfere, must be used for the taxon. However, junior synonyms are still important to document, because if the earliest name cannot be used the next available junior synonym must be used for the taxon. For other purposes, if a researcher is interested in consulting or compiling all known information regarding a taxon, some of this may well have been published under names now regarded as outdated and so it is again useful to know a list of historic synonyms which may have been used for a given current taxon name.
Objective synonyms refer to taxa with same rank. This may be species-group taxa of the same rank with the same type specimen, genus-group taxa of the same rank with the same type species or if their type species are themselves objective synonyms, of family-group taxa with the same type genus, etc. In the case of subjective synonyms, there is no such shared type, so the synonymy is open to taxonomic judgement, meaning that th
Australia
Australia the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and numerous smaller islands. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area; the neighbouring countries are Papua New Guinea and East Timor to the north. The population of 25 million is urbanised and concentrated on the eastern seaboard. Australia's capital is Canberra, its largest city is Sydney; the country's other major metropolitan areas are Melbourne, Brisbane and Adelaide. Australia was inhabited by indigenous Australians for about 60,000 years before the first British settlement in the late 18th century, it is documented. After the European exploration of the continent by Dutch explorers in 1606, who named it New Holland, Australia's eastern half was claimed by Great Britain in 1770 and settled through penal transportation to the colony of New South Wales from 26 January 1788, a date which became Australia's national day; the population grew in subsequent decades, by the 1850s most of the continent had been explored and an additional five self-governing crown colonies established.
On 1 January 1901, the six colonies federated. Australia has since maintained a stable liberal democratic political system that functions as a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy, comprising six states and ten territories. Being the oldest and driest inhabited continent, with the least fertile soils, Australia has a landmass of 7,617,930 square kilometres. A megadiverse country, its size gives it a wide variety of landscapes, with deserts in the centre, tropical rainforests in the north-east and mountain ranges in the south-east. A gold rush began in Australia in the early 1850s, its population density, 2.8 inhabitants per square kilometre, remains among the lowest in the world. Australia generates its income from various sources including mining-related exports, telecommunications and manufacturing. Indigenous Australian rock art is the oldest and richest in the world, dating as far back as 60,000 years and spread across hundreds of thousands of sites. Australia is a developed country, with the world's 14th-largest economy.
It has a high-income economy, with the world's tenth-highest per capita income. It is a regional power, has the world's 13th-highest military expenditure. Australia has the world's ninth-largest immigrant population, with immigrants accounting for 26% of the population. Having the third-highest human development index and the eighth-highest ranked democracy globally, the country ranks in quality of life, education, economic freedom, civil liberties and political rights, with all its major cities faring well in global comparative livability surveys. Australia is a member of the United Nations, G20, Commonwealth of Nations, ANZUS, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, World Trade Organization, Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, Pacific Islands Forum and the ASEAN Plus Six mechanism; the name Australia is derived from the Latin Terra Australis, a name used for a hypothetical continent in the Southern Hemisphere since ancient times. When Europeans first began visiting and mapping Australia in the 17th century, the name Terra Australis was applied to the new territories.
Until the early 19th century, Australia was best known as "New Holland", a name first applied by the Dutch explorer Abel Tasman in 1644 and subsequently anglicised. Terra Australis still saw occasional usage, such as in scientific texts; the name Australia was popularised by the explorer Matthew Flinders, who said it was "more agreeable to the ear, an assimilation to the names of the other great portions of the earth". The first time that Australia appears to have been used was in April 1817, when Governor Lachlan Macquarie acknowledged the receipt of Flinders' charts of Australia from Lord Bathurst. In December 1817, Macquarie recommended to the Colonial Office. In 1824, the Admiralty agreed that the continent should be known by that name; the first official published use of the new name came with the publication in 1830 of The Australia Directory by the Hydrographic Office. Colloquial names for Australia include "Oz" and "the Land Down Under". Other epithets include "the Great Southern Land", "the Lucky Country", "the Sunburnt Country", "the Wide Brown Land".
The latter two both derive from Dorothea Mackellar's 1908 poem "My Country". Human habitation of the Australian continent is estimated to have begun around 65,000 to 70,000 years ago, with the migration of people by land bridges and short sea-crossings from what is now Southeast Asia; these first inhabitants were the ancestors of modern Indigenous Australians. Aboriginal Australian culture is one of the oldest continual civilisations on earth. At the time of first European contact, most Indigenous Australians were hunter-gatherers with complex economies and societies. Recent archaeological finds suggest. Indigenous Australians have an oral culture with spiritual values based on reverence for the land and a belief in the Dreamtime; the Torres Strait Islanders, ethnically Melanesian, obtained their livelihood from seasonal horticulture and the resources of their reefs and seas. The northern coasts and waters of Australia were visited s
