Visitors expecting to see an opera in Sydney one night and meet Crocodile Dundee the next will have to re-think their grasp of geography in this huge country. It is this sheer vastness that gives Australia - and its diverse population - much of its character.
Queensland
With regions such as the Gold Coast and Whitsundays, it's little wonder that
Queensland brings to mind lazy days on sunny beaches. It's true, the perfect
climate and seaside towns show relaxed Australian culture at its best.
New South Wales
Welcome to New South Wales. Australia's oldest state is packed full of amazing
attractions, places of spectacular natural beauty, unique history and a bunch
of fun activities for all to enjoy.
Australian Capital Territory
Welcome to the nation's capital. It's full name is a bit of a mouthful so the
state is known simply as the ACT. You could easily miss it on the map as it's
far smaller than the state of New South Wales that completely surrounds it.
Victoria
For a small state, Victoria has some of the best sightseeing and most fascinating
places in the country. From the heady Gold Rush days to the dramatic scenery,
there are surprises around every bend.
Tasmania
Tucked away at the far south of the country and across the untamed waters of
Bass Strait, lies Tasmania, a place rich with heritage and spectacular natural
history.
South Australia
Wine connoisseurs won't be disappointed, with regions such as the Barossa, Clare
Valley and The Limestone Coast, South Australia's large selection of acclaimed
wineries will satisfy your every tastebud.
Western Australia
Western Australia has a rugged and beautiful outback & a history tied to
the ocean. From the vast open plains of the Nullarbor to the colourful marine
wonderland of Ningaloo Reef, WA provides the best of both worlds.
Northern Territory
A land of contrasts, the Northern Territory is rich with striking scenery. From
the lush rainforests of Kakadu and Katherine to the arid red plains of the Red
Centre in Alice Springs and the great rock, Uluru, the land is full of surprises.
Melbourne - Best City In The World
According to the EIU, Melbourne shares first place as the best city in the world.
Australia's Immigrant Population Grows
4.8 million people born overseas have made new lives in Australia. The proportion
of migrants living in Australia is the highest since Federation.
Living in Adelaide
What's it like living in South Australia's capital city?
Why I Love Living in Brisbane
Alan MacDonald from Glasgow has positive thoughts about choosing to live in
Australia's biggest sub-tropical city.
Australia's Climates
Many people emigrate to Australia to get better weather. Here's a side-by-side
comparison of the weather to expect and the climates of Adelaide, Brisbane,
Melbourne, Sydney and Perth to enable you to choose the ideal city for your
tastes.
The Big Cities of Australia
A side-by-side comparison of quality of life, migrant numbers, and other aspects
of Australia's big five cities.
Find Australian Jobs
If you are a skilled worker and you want to make a new life in Australia, getting
a job makes sense.
Sea Temperatures
Discover which of Australia's main cities you should choose to get the warmest
seas.
Is your personality right for emigration?
Although you are a skilled worker and you might think emigrating to Australia
is a good idea, your personality could undermine your migration and leave you
desperate to return home.
What's Wrong with Living in Brisbane?
Alan describes some of the less desirable features of living in Queensland's
capital city.
Wages in Australia
Thinking of emigrating to Australia? The average wage has risen to more than
$1,000 per week. Skilled workers earn considerably more.
Spiders
Should you be put off moving to Australia by its poisonous spiders? How many
people are bitten each year?
Sydney attracts more immigrants than any other Australian city. Large numbers of relocating Australians are also drawn by career opportunities in Sydney.
In quality of life surveys, Australian cities score consistently well compared with cities in other countries. As you might expect, Sydney rates very well but its overall score is lower than it might be because crime rates are similar to London's and New York's. Fortunately, there are plenty of areas in Sydney with low crime rates.
It's fair to say some families with children have found other cities meet their lifestyle requirements better than Sydney does. Nevertheless, many migrants with children are happy they chose Sydney.
If you don't have children, and you want to live in an exciting city, Sydney is almost certainly your ideal Australian location.
Around 40,000 new people move to Sydney each year and around 15,000 new homes are built to accommodate them.
According to the Bureau of Statistics, almost forty percent of Sydney's residents were born overseas.
People from the UK are Sydney's biggest migrant group, making up 5 percent of the population.
The next biggest groups are Chinese (2%), New Zealanders (2%), Vietnamese (1%), Lebanese (1%) and Italian (1%). Many smaller migrant groups, such as people originating in Hong Kong, The Philippines, Greece, India and Korea also contribute to Sydney's population.
Around 11% of Sydney's population is Asian, 3% come from the Middle East or North Africa and 1% from the rest of Africa - mainly South Africa. Aboriginal Australians represent about 1% of Sydney's population.
Around one quarter of Adelaide's residents were born overseas.
According to the Bureau of Statistics, people from the UK are Adelaide's biggest migrant group, making up 10 percent of the population. The next biggest groups are Italians (2%), Greeks (1%), Germans (1%) and Vietnamese (1%).
Around 2.5% of the population is South-East Asian and 0.5% come from the Middle East or North Africa. Aboriginal Australians represent 1% of Adelaide's population.
Despite being a city with over a million inhabitants, Adelaide can feel more like a large town - there is a great deal of open space and parkland.
The city is well laid out in planned, rectangular blocks with lots of straight roads and green spaces.
Adelaide's suburban streets are wide and uncluttered - there is space for everyone to park their car off-street in driveways and/or garages.
Adelaide has the highest proportion of retired people of Australia's cities and, although there is plenty to do, it's not considered a trendy city in the way Sydney is.
If you like to shop in top fashion outlets, or if you are especially keen on shopping for designer-label clothing, laid-back Adelaide may disappoint you. Casual is king in the warm climate and many of Adelaide's clothes shops reflect this.
Adelaide's foodies are very well provided for. There are large numbers of eateries. Particularly worth visiting is Rundle Street, just east of the City Centre - Rundle street is almost exclusively made up of restaurants. The Gouger Street precinct in the Central Market area also has a large variety of restaurants including Asian, Greek, Italian and Australian.
Melbourne has traditionally rivalled Sydney as Australia's premier city. From the outsider's point of view, it's fair to say this is a competition Sydney has won. You would not want to mention this in Melbourne though!
In quality of life surveys, Australian cities score strongly compared with cities in other countries. The Economist Intelligence Unit rated Melbourne as Australia's best city. As you might expect, any city rated as Australia's best will also be one of the world's best. The Economist Intelligence Unit rated Melbourne (along with Vancouver and Vienna) as the best city in the world to live in.
Melbourne scored the highest possible mark for all categories, including infrastructure, housing, education, access, environmental focus, crime rate, culture and cultural events, diversity and climate.
Although Melbourne's weather can be changeable, it scored the highest climate mark of any Australian city, partly because of its dry summer heat.
Melbourne has a thriving cafe culture and offers its residents virtually unlimited dining and cultural opportunities. The shopping certainly rivals Sydney's and there are a huge number of parks and gardens around the city. Melbourne also plays host to the Australian Formula 1 Grand Prix, the Australian Tennis Open, and, in Golf, the Heineken Classic and Australian Open.
People
According to the Bureau of Statistics, around one third of Melbourne's residents
were born overseas.
People from the UK are Melbourne's biggest migrant group, making up 5 percent of the population. The next biggest groups are Italians (2%), Vietnamese (2%) Greeks (2%), and New Zealanders (2%).
Around 7% of Melbourne's population came from Asian countries and 2% come from the Middle East or North Africa. Aboriginal Australians represent less than 0.5% of Melbourne's population.
Perth's lucky residents enjoy a Mediterranean climate and a relaxed lifestyle in a very beautiful, clean, spacious feeling city.
Like most Australian cities, the majority of people live in detached houses with gardens. This means the city sprawls over a large area. At the heart of the city lies the beautiful, wide, Swan River.
Slightly over one third of Perth's residents were born overseas.
According to the Bureau of Statistics, people from the UK are Perth's biggest migrant group, making up 12.4 percent of the population. The next biggest groups are New Zealanders (2.5%), Italians (1.6%), Malaysians (1.2%) and South Africans (1.0%).
Around 6.5% of the population is Asian and 0.6% come from the Middle East or North Africa. Aboriginal Australians represent 1.5% of Perth's population.
Despite having well over one million inhabitants, Perth is markedly quieter than the larger cities of Sydney and Melbourne. Perth is not really an ideal location for young, single people seeking exciting city nightlife. Many people think Perth is an excellent location for families.
Most migrants find Perth is a friendly place to settle, particularly compared with Sydney where people sometimes seem to have less time for one another.
One of Perth's big plusses is its beautiful beaches. Many migrants dream of living next to these although houses in good, beachside suburbs tend to be very pricey.
Unlike the big east-coast cities, where the sun rises over the Pacific Ocean, Perth sees spectacular sunsets over the Indian Ocean.
Between 1606 and 1770, an estimated 54 European ships from a range of nations made contact. Many of these were merchant ships from the Dutch East Indies Company and included the ships of Abel Tasman. Tasman charted parts of the north, west and south coasts of Australia which was then known as New Holland.
In 1770, Englishman Captain James Cook charted the Australian east coast in his ship HM Bark Endeavour. Cook claimed the east coast under instruction from King George III of England on 22 August 1770 at Possession Island, naming eastern Australia 'New South Wales'. The coast of Australia, featuring Tasmania as a separate island, was mapped in detail by the English mariners and navigators Bass and Flinders, and the French mariner, Baudin. A nearly completed map of the coastline was published by Flinders in 1814.
This period of European exploration is reflected in the names of landmarks such as the Torres Strait, Arnhem Land, Dampier Sound, Tasmania, the Furneaux Islands, Cape Frecinyet and La Perouse. French expeditions between 1790 and the 1830s, led by D'Entrecasteaux, Baudin, and Furneaux, were recorded by the naturalists Labillardière and Péron.
The First Fleet and a British colony
The First Fleet in Sydney Cove, January 27, 1788 by John Allcot 1888-1973.
From the IMAGES1 collection of the National Library of Australia.
Captain Arthur Phillip and the First Fleet, comprising 11 ships and around 1,350
people, arrived at Botany Bay between 18 and 20 January 1788. However, this
area was deemed to be unsuitable for settlement and they moved north to Port
Jackson on 26 January 1788, landing at Camp Cove, known as 'cadi' to the Cadigal
people.
Governor Phillip carried instructions to establish the first British Colony in Australia. The First Fleet was under prepared for the task, and the soil around Sydney Cove was poor. The young colony relied upon both the development of farms around Parramatta, 25 kilometres upstream to the west, and also trading food with local Aboriginal clans.
The Second Fleet's arrival in 1790 provided badly needed food and supplies; however the newly arrived convicts were too ill, with many near to death, to be useful to the colony. The Second Fleet became known as the 'Death Fleet' - 278 of the convicts and crew died on the voyage to Australia, compared to only 48 on the First Fleet.
The colony experienced many other difficulties, including the fact that there were many more men than women - around four men for every woman - which caused problems in the settlement for many years.
Contacts and colonisation
Navigation by Aborigines, NSW
Engraving from Peron's Voyages 1800-1804, 1889
Image courtesy of the State Library of New South Wales
In the winter of 1791, the process of British colonisation of Western Australia
began when George Vancouver claimed the Albany region in the name of King George
III. In the summer of 1801, Matthew Flinders was welcomed by Nyungar upon his
arrival aboard the Investigator and various items were exchanged. On the 1802
voyage from Sydney, Flinders recruited two Aboriginal people, Bungaree, who
had sailed with him on the Norfolk, and Nanbaree. The visit of Flinders and
other mariners to the coast of Arnhem Land is recorded in the paintings of 'praus'
and European ships at rock art sites.
Initially, relations between the explorers and the Aboriginal inhabitants were generally hospitable and based on understanding the terms of trading for food, water, axes, cloth and artefacts, a relationship encouraged by Governor Phillip. These relations became hostile as Aborigines realised that the land and resources upon which they depended and the order of their life were seriously disrupted by the on-going presence of the colonisers. Between 1790 and 1810, clans people of the Eora group in the Sydney area, led by Pemulwuy of the Bidjigal clan, undertook a campaign of resistance against the English colonisers in a series of attacks.
Law and land in New South Wales
A government jail gang, Sydney, N.S. Wales by Augustus Earle, 1793-1838
From the IMAGES1 collection of the National Library of Australia
From 1788 until 1823, the Colony of New South Wales was a penal colony. This
meant that there were mainly convicts, marines and the wives of the marines
although free settlers started to arrive in 1793. In 1823, the British government
established a New South Wales parliament by setting up a Legislative Council
as well as a Supreme Court under the New South Wales Act 1823 (UK). This Act
is now seen as a first step towards a 'responsible' Parliament in Australia.
It was also intended to establish English law in the colony with the establishment of NSW criminal and civil courts. However, there were significant departures from English law when the first cases were heard in the courts. The first civil case heard in Australia, in July 1788, was brought by a convict couple. The convicts successfully sued the captain of the ship in which they had been transported for the loss of a parcel. In Britain, as convicts, they would have had no rights to bring this case forward.
The question of land ownership by Indigenous people was not dealt with by the colonisers until the mid-1830s. In 1835, John Batman signed two 'treaties' with Kulin people to 'purchase' 600,000 acres of land between what is now Melbourne and the Bellarine Peninsula. In response to these treaties and other arrangements between free settlers and Indigenous inhabitants, such as around Camden, the NSW Governor, Sir Richard Bourke issued a proclamation. Bourke's proclamation established the notion that the land belonged to no-one prior to the British crown taking possession.
To effectively over-ride the legitimacy of the 'Batman treaty' the British Colonial Office felt the need to issue another Proclamation. The Colonial Office proclamation stated that people found in possession of land without the authority of the government would be considered trespassers. This was despite and because many other people, including a report to the House of Commons in 1837, recognised that Aboriginal occupants had rights in land. Never-the-less, the law in New South Wales variously applied the principles expressed in Bourke's proclamation. This would not change until the Australian High Court's decision in the Mabo Case in 1992.
In 1861, the NSW government opened up the free selection of Crown land. The Crown Lands Acts 1861 permitted any person to select up to 320 acres on the condition of paying a deposit and living on the land for three years. The Acts also limited the use of Crown lands by Aboriginal people as until this time, pastoral lands were still able to be legitimately used by them.
As a result of Crown Land being available for selection, great conflicts between squatters and the selectors ensued. Scheming in selecting and acquiring land became widespread. The Acts had a powerful impact on the ownership of land. The Acts also affected the use of bush land across vast regions of the colony. In the view of some observers, these disputes over access to land also encouraged bushranging.
In spite of its problems, the colony of New South Wales grew, and the Port Jackson settlement is now the site of Australia's largest city - Sydney.
Establishment of other British colonies
Van Diemen's Land
The first British settlement on the island was made at Risdon in 1803 when Lieutenant
John Bowen landed with about 50 settlers, crew, soldiers and convicts. The site
was abandoned and in 1804 Lieutenant David Collins established a settlement
at Hobart in February 1804. The colony of Van Diemen's Land was established
in its own right in 1825 and officially became known as Tasmania in 1856.
Western Australia
Western Australia was established in 1827. Major Edmund Lockyer established
a small British settlement at King Georges Sound (Albany) and in 1829 the new
Swan River Colony was officially proclaimed. Captain James Stirling was its
first Governor. The colony was proclaimed a British penal settlement in 1849
and the first convicts arrived in 1850.
South Australia
The British province of South Australia was established in 1836, and in 1842
it became a crown colony. South Australia was never a British convict colony,
although a number of ex-convicts settled there from other colonies. Around 38,000
immigrants had arrived and settled in the area by 1850.
Victoria
In 1851 Victoria (Port Phillip District) separated from New South Wales. The
first attempt at settlement was made in 1803 by Lieutenant David Collins but
the harsh conditions forced him to move on to Tasmania where he eventually settled
Hobart in February 1804. It was not until the Henty brothers landed in Portland
Bay in 1834, and John Batman settled on the site of Melbourne, that the Port
Phillip District was officially sanctioned (1837). The first immigrant ships
arrived at Port Phillip in 1839.
Queensland
In 1859 Queensland separated from New South Wales. In 1824, the penal colony
at Redcliffe was established by Lieutenant John Oxley. Known as the Moreton
Bay Settlement, it later moved to the site now called Brisbane. Around 2,280
convicts were sent to the settlement between 1824 and 1839. The first free European
settlers moved to the district in 1838 and others followed in 1840.
Northern Territory
In 1825 the area occupied today by the Northern Territory was part of the colony
of New South Wales. It was first settled by Europeans in 1824 at Fort Dundas,
Port Essington. In 1863 control of the area was given to South Australia. Its
capital city, Darwin, was established in 1869, and was originally known as Palmerston.
On January 1 1912, the Northern Territory was separated from South Australia
and became part of the Commonwealth of Australia.
Recognition of Australia
The name 'Australia' was first suggested by Matthew Flinders and supported by
Governor Macquarie (1810-1821). At a meeting in 1899, the Premiers of the other
Colonies agreed to locate the new federal capital of Australia in New South
Wales, and added this section to the Australian Constitution. In 1909, the State
of New South Wales surrended a portion of this territory to the Commonwealth
of Australia, the site of present day Canberra.
Australia Day Anniversary
While formal dinners and informal celebrations to mark the landing of the First
Fleet at Camp Cove were held on the 26 January each year, the first official
celebration of English colonisation was held in 1818. During the colonial period,
26 January was called Foundation Day in New South Wales. Other colonies celebrated
with their own dates of significance relating to the founding of their colonies.
Western Australia, for example, celebrated Proclamation Day on 21 October each
year.
Since 1901, when Australia became a federation of the six colonies, the landing of the First Fleet at Camp Cove has evolved from a small commemorative New South Wales holiday into a major national celebration, recognised as Australia Day. From 1994 all states and territories agreed to celebrate Australia Day on the actual day.
For many Indigenous Australians however, 26 January is not a
day of celebration but one of mourning and protest. On the morning of the 26
January for the 1938 sesquicentennial (150th) celebrations, Aboriginal activists
met to hold a 'Day of Mourning' conference aimed at securing national citizenship
and equal status for Aborigines. Citizenship rights for all Aborigines were
recognised following a referendum on the issue in 1967. In an attempt to heal
some of the pain of Australia's past, there is now an advanced Reconciliation
movement.
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