Australia Australia.
 S E.
 Governor General
 Prime Minister.
 Elizabeth II
 Michael Jeffery
 John Howard
 Constitution Act
 Statute of Westminster
 Australia Act
 January 
 December 
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 September est.
 census
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 various UTC.
The Commonwealth of Australia is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the world's smallest continent and a number of islands in the Southern Indian and Pacific Oceans Australia's neighbouring countries are Indonesia East Timor and Papua New Guinea to the north the Solomon Islands Vanuatu and New Caledonia to the north east and New Zealand to the south east.
The continent of Australia has been inhabited for over years by Indigenous Australians After sporadic visits by fishermen from the north and by European explorers and merchants starting in the century the eastern half of the continent was claimed by the British in and officially settled as the penal colony of New South Wales on January As the population grew and new areas were explored another five largely self governing Crown Colonies were successively established over the course of the century.
On January 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 current population of around 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 southern Legends of an unknown southern land terra australis incognita date back to the Roman times and were commonplace in medi val geography but they were not based on any actual knowledge of the continent The Dutch adjectival form Australische Australian in the sense of southern was used by Dutch officials in Batavia to refer to the newly discovered land to the south as early as The first English language writer to use the word Australia was Alexander Dalrymple in An Historical Collection of Voyages and Discoveries in the South Pacific Ocean published in He used the term to refer to the entire South Pacific region not specifically to the Australian continent In George Shaw and Sir James Smith published Zoology and Botany of New Holland in which they wrote of the vast island or rather continent of Australia Australasia or New Holland.View of Port Jackson taken from the South Head from A Voyage to Terra Australis Sydney was established on this site.The name Australia was popularised by the work A Voyage to Terra Australis by the navigator Matthew Flinders 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 South Wales subsequently used the word in his dispatches to England In he recommended that it be officially adopted In the British Admiralty finally accepted that the continent should be known officially as Australia.
The word Australia in Australian English is pronounced st lj st li or st j.
 History. Main article History of Australia.Lieutenant James Cook charted the East coast of Australia on HM Bark Endeavour claiming the land for Britain in This replica was built in Fremantle in for Australia's bicentenary.The first human habitation of Australia is estimated to have occurred between and years ago The first Australians were the ancestors of the current Indigenous Australians they arrived via land bridges and short sea crossings from present day Southeast Asia Most of these people were hunter gatherers with a complex oral culture and spiritual values based on reverence for the land and a belief in the Dreamtime.