<text> GEOGRAPHY: Burt, J., Australia (1989); Crawford, R. M., Australia, 3d rev. ed. (1970); Dury, G. H., and Logan, M. I., eds., Studies in Australian Geography (1968); Jeans, D. N., ed., Australia: A Geography (1977); Leeper, G. W., ed., The Australian Environment, 4th ed. rev. (1970); Price, Sir Archibald, Island Continent (1972); Tooley, R. V., The Mapping of Australia (1980). ANIMAL LIFE: Cayley, N. W., What Bird Is That: A Guide to the Birds of Australia, 5th ed., rev. and enl. by A. H. Chisholm, et al. (1968); Ride, W. D. L., A Guide to the Native Mammals of Australia (1970). PEOPLES: Learmonth, A. M., The Australians (1973); Tinsdale, N. B., Aboriginal Tribes of Australia (1974). ECONOMICS: Head, B., ed., Politics and Development (1986); Hefford, R., et al., An Introduction to the Australian Economy (1980); Williams, D. B., Agriculture in the Australian Economy (1982). GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS: Aitkin, Don, Stability and Change in Australian Politics (1977); Brugger, B., and Jaensch, D., Australian Politics (1986); Griffiths, A. R., Contemporary Australia (1977); Howard, Michael C., ed., Whitefella Business: Aborigines in Australian Politics (1978); McMinn, W. G., A Constitutional History of Australia (1979); Rowley, C. D., Recovery: The Politics of Aboriginal Reform (1986); Theophanpous, Andrew, Australian Democracy in Crisis (1980); Whitlam, Gough, A Pacific Community (1981).</text>
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<text><span class="style1">he Commonwealth of Australia is a fully independent member of the </span><span class="style3"><a href="#" class="group">COMMONWEALTH OF NATIONS</a></span><span class="style1">. The constitution (1901) resembles that of the United States in that it creates a federal form of government; the powers of the Commonwealth are specified, leaving residual powers to the states. Supreme executive powers (although more ceremonial than actual) rest in the British monarch, represented in Australia by the governor-general and in each of the six states by a governor. These officials are appointed by the British monarch, but appointments are nearly always recommended by the Australian governments. Legislative power rests with the Parliament of Australia, which consists of an upper house, the Senate, and the House of Representatives. The leader of the majority party in the House is named prime minister. He appoints his ministers from members of the Senate and House. The Senate consists of ten senators from each state and two from each territory, each elected for 6-year terms. The number of representatives is proportional to the populations of the states and territories, and House elections are held at least once every three years. Members of Parliament are elected by universal adult (over 18 years of age) suffrage, and voting is compulsory. The principal political parties are the Australian Labor party, the Liberal party, and the National Country party. The latter two, in coalition, have been dominant through most of the period since World War II. Labor, however, was in power in 1972-75 and returned to office under </span><span class="style3"><a href="#" class="group">ROBERT HAWKE</a></span><span class="style1"> in 1983. Hawke remained prime minister following elections in 1984, 1987, and 1990. The organization of the state governments is similar to that of the Commonwealth. Each state has an appointed governor, an elected premier, and a legislature. Queensland is the only state with a unicameral legislature. State governments are responsible for education, health, public utilities, justice, and transportation. Since 1974 both the Northern Territory and the Australian Capital Territory have had elected legislative assemblies. </span></text>
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<text>COMMONWEALTH OF NATIONSROBERT HAWKE</text>
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<text>Australia has a well-diversified economy and one of the highest per capita incomes in the world. Although the country is one of the world's leading exporters of agricultural products, manufacturing is now the largest single source of its income. Gold rushes in the mid-1800s encouraged immigration and exploration of the Outback, and the silver-lead-zinc lode discovered at Broken Hill, New South Wales, in 1883 remains a major source of production. Most of Australia's mineral production, however, dates from 1960 or later. AgricultureArable land amounts to only 4% of the continent's area, while nearly 60% is in pasture used mainly for low-intensity (extensive) grazing by cattle and sheep. The arable land, 80% of which is under cultivation, is confined to the nation's humid and subhumid areas located in the southwestern corner of the continent and in a narrow fringe extending inland (no more than 250 km/155 mi) from the southeastern and eastern coastlands between Cairns in the north and the vicinity of Adelaide in the south. The lands used for pasture are concentrated in the generally drier parts of the continent, some 25% of all Australia being occupied by 16,000 ranches, or "stations," averaging 30,000 ha (75,000 acres) in extent. Australia is an important producer and exporter of agricultural products. It leads the world in wool production and is also an important supplier of wheat, other cereals, dairy produce, meat, sugar, and fruit. Australia's sheep constitute about 12% of the world's total sheep population and yield about 25% of the world's wool as well as quantities of mutton and lamb. Merino sheep, prized for their wool, account for a large part of the sheep kept. Many cattle and calves are also raised, the beef cattle being concentrated in semiarid and northern regions of Australia whereas dairy cattle are raised mainly in cooler and more humid areas in the southeast. Wheat, the chief crop, occupies nearly 70% of all cultivated land and is grown mainly in all the states. Sugar is grown in the subtropical areas of coastal Queensland and New South Wales. Fruit production is concentrated in humid or irrigated areas; berries, grapes (for wine), and apples are major fruits grown in temperate areas, while bananas and pineapples are important in subtropical areas of Queensland. Forestry and FishingPotentially productive forests and woodlands cover less than 6% of all land. About two-thirds are occupied by the eucalyptus, a strong, durable wood suitable for building and packaging. Only a small area is occupied by commercial plantations of pines and other conifers from the Northern Hemisphere established to provide the softwoods that are unavailable in Australia's natural forests. Fisheries are limited, primarily because of the lack of mingling of ocean currents over the extensive continental shelves. The most important fish, by value, are prawns, rock lobster, tuna, and salmon. Manufacturing and IndustryAustralia is one of the world's most industrialized nations. The most industrialized states are New South Wales and Victoria. Western Australia and the Northern Territory are the least industrialized areas. Food processing is the leading industry, in terms of both value added (17% of the total) and employment (15% of the total). This reflects the continuing importance of processing Australia's traditional meat and wheat exports and the growing importance of wine production, freezing, canning, and other forms of food processing. Second in value added is the manufacture of machinery (12% of total value added), and third in importance is metallurgy. Basic steel production is centered at Newcastle, Port Kembla, and Whyalla; Australia also produces specialized steels, aluminum, and refined copper, lead, zinc, and tin. Fourth in value, and associated with the machine and metallurgical industries, is the manufacture of automobiles, aircraft, ships, and other forms of transportation equipment. Other important industries include the manufacture of chemicals, refined petroleum, fertilizers, plastics, pharmaceuticals, textiles, clothing, and footwear. A persistent problem is the limited domestic market and remoteness of overseas markets. Partial mitigation is provided by tariff protection, which permits outside investment while promoting domestic control. PowerPower is supplied by black coal, brown coal, hydroelectric installations, petroleum, and natural gas. Total production from all sources amounted to 132.2 billion kW h in 1987, about 37% of which was generated and used in New South Wales. Coal, supplemented by natural gas in South Australia and Victoria and by oil in Western Australia, produced 89% of total electricity; hydroelectric installations, about 11%. The largest hydroelectric installation, producing about 5 billion kW h annually, is the Snowy Mountains Hydroelectric Scheme in southeastern New South Wales, a multipurpose power and irrigation project that diverts water into headwaters of the Murray River drainage basin. Unlike other parts of Australia, Tasmania, with 50% of Australia's total hydroelectric potential, depends wholly on hydroelectricity; a back-up oil-fired plant is available for use in extended periods of drought. In addition to other energy sources, Australia is well to the forefront in pioneering the use of solar energy, especially for desalting artesian-well water and for domestic use. TransportationAustralia as 38,670 km (24,084 mi) of government-owned railroad and 1,610 (1,000 mi) of privately owned railroads. The public systems, which are owned and operated by the states, carry 111 million metric tons of freight a year, the private systems, 127 million metric tons. Most of the railroad lines are concentrated near the coast and radiate inland from the major ports. Reflecting the early development of the states as separate colonies, those in Queensland, Western Australia, and Tasmania operate on narrow-gauge tracks; those in Victoria and South Australia on broad-gauge tracks; and those in New South Wales on standard-gauge tracks. Railroad lines cross state lines at only nine points and at two of them transhipment from one gauge to another is required. Transcontinental through routes, converted to standard gauge only since 1969, connect Townsville with Melbourne and Sydney with Perth. Enabling legislation for conversion of the Adelaide link was passed in 1980. About 50% of Australia's roads are paved. Included in this total are 16,000 km (10,000 mi) of national highways that connect the state capitals and also link them and the Northern Territory with Canberra and the Australian Capital Territory. Traffic congestion is greatest in the large coastal cities where most of the nation's 8.8 million automobiles and more than 1 million trucks and buses (1987) are, like the population, concentrated. Air transportation is important in so large a country. There are six private domestic airlines and one government-owned international airline, Qantas. Most ranches also have their own aircraft and airstrips. TradeInternal trade is dominated by the two most populous states, New South Wales (mainly Sydney) and Victoria (mainly Melbourne). Together these two states account for 55% of all wholesale trade and 75% of all retail sales. Three-fourths of all foreign trade exports are primary products. Australia leads the world in wool exports and also ranks high among the world's leading exporters of meat, wheat, bauxite, and iron ore. Coal exports are also significant. In the mid-1980s, depressed commodity prices contributed to a balance-of-trade deficit and a substantial foreign debt. Tourism has become an important source of foreign exchange. About 28% of all imports are materials used in manufacturing; 41% consist of machinery and transportation equipment. Notable changes have occurred in the direction of trade since 1945. Exports to the United Kingdom, which had taken 50% of all exports before World War II, fell to 20% in 1965 and to only 4.3% in 1988. Conversely, trade with Japan and the United States increased dramatically, the two countries accounting for 37% of all exports and 40% of all imports in 1988.</text>
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<text><span class="style1">n 1989, Australia had an estimated population of 16,800,000, up from 10,100,000 in 1960. Immigration continues to play a major role in population increase, more than 4 million new immigrants having settled in Australia since 1945. Despite a more diversified pattern of immigration in recent years, the population of Australia remains dominated ethnically by a majority that is of British descent (more than 90% from Great Britain and Ireland) or is recently arrived from the United Kingdom. Smaller ethnic groups of European origin include many of Greek, German, Italian, and Yugoslav descent. Aborigines and people of part Aboriginal descent constitute a small minority (only 1.2% of the total population); there are small but growing Chinese and other Asian minorities. Australia's pre-European inhabitants, the Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders, numbered about 185,000 in 1989. Some live on designated tribal lands, and others work on ranches or live in the deteriorated inner-city areas along the coast. In general, the Aborigines have a higher birthrate, a higher death rate, and a shorter life expectancy than other Australians. The Paleolithic culture of the Australian Aborigines did not survive the European settlement of the early 1800s. Possessing no pottery or metals and depending on fishing, hunting, and gathering, the Aborigines had developed kinship systems and a mythology that were rich and complex. Some 500 tribes and as many related languages existed among the approximately 300,000 Aborigines living in Australia when the Europeans arrived. Since the 1960s, the Aborigines have been granted legal and civil rights enjoyed by the white population, but Aborigines and many part-Aborigines remain far removed from Australia's economic prosperity and social life. (See </span><span class="style3"><a href="#" class="group">ABORIGINES, AUSTRALIAN</a></span><span class="style1">.) Language and ReligionThe language of Australia is almost universally English, although some immigrant groups form small language blocks in the cities. Australia has developed its own accents of English, which to untutored ears sound similar to London cockney but which certainly display Irish influences. The educated Australian accent differs from standard British English no more than the educated New England accent; the general Australian accent is less different from standard southern English than is the latter from standard U.S. Midwest English. Broad Australian is as distinctive as a strong Texas accent. About 76% of the total population profess affiliation with some form of Christianity. The predominant religions are Anglicanism (about 26%) and Roman Catholicism (26%), the former reflecting the strong traditional influence of English, the latter of Irish, ancestry. About 11% profess no religion. DemographyThe colonial capital cities (later to be state capitals) were founded from 1788 to 1836. </span><span class="style3"><a href="#" class="group">ADELAIDE</a></span><span class="style1">, the youngest, was the only one to receive no British convicts. Assisted (subsidized) migration began in the 1830s and continues. Until about 1870, foreign-born population exceeded native-born, and it still amounts to some 20%. Until 1973, immigration was controlled by the effective but unofficial White Australia Policy. Since then there has been a significant increase in arrivals from various Southeast Asian nations. The population is more than 85% urban. The capital cities have always been demographically dominant, with 25% to 30% of their individual colonial populations in the mid-1800s, and 62% to 72% of their state populations today, except for </span><span class="style3"><a href="#" class="group">BRISBANE</a></span><span class="style1">, Queensland (46%) and </span><span class="style3"><a href="#" class="group">HOBART</a></span><span class="style1">, Tasmania (40%). In 1986 the six capital cities and their surrounding metropolitan areas contained more than 9 million people, or 60% of all Australians. The largest was </span><span class="style3"><a href="#" class="group">SYDNEY</a></span><span class="style1">, with nearly 3.5 million, followed closely by </span><span class="style3"><a href="#" class="group">MELBOURNE</a></span><span class="style1">, with more than 2.9 million. Brisbane had nearly 1.2 million by 1986, and Adelaide and </span><span class="style3"><a href="#" class="group">PERTH</a></span><span class="style1"> were slightly above the 1 million level. </span><span class="style3"><a href="#" class="group">CANBERRA</a></span><span class="style1">, the federal capital located in the Australian Capital Territory, had a estimated population of 281,000 in 1986. Other large cities include the industrial center of </span><span class="style3"><a href="#" class="group">NEWCASTLE</a></span><span class="style1">, the ports of Geelong and Wollongong, and the Queensland resort community of Gold Coast. Inland settlements other than Canberra are generally small. Ballarat and Bendigo have survived from early starts in gold-rush days. Toowoomba, Albury-Wodonga, and Wagga Wagga are regional agricultural centers. </span><span class="style3"><a href="#" class="group">ALICE SPRINGS</a></span><span class="style1"> is a stepping-off point and service center for the Outback. EducationEducation is free and compulsory from the ages of 6 to 15 (16 in Tasmania). From colonial times, education in Australia has been highly centralized. State administrations (the federal government in the territories) controlled the hiring, posting, and promotion of all public school teachers. Even the overwhelmingly Roman Catholic private schools, which enrolled about 26% of all primary and secondary school students in 1986, were long locked together with the public school system by a common external (university entrance) examination taken at the conclusion of secondary education. The federal government has taken an increasing role in education since the 1950s; the first concessions to local participation were not made until the 1970s, with the phasing out of external exams in favor of internal assessment of student performance by teachers within the schools. All but one of Australia's 20 universities (see </span><span class="style3"><a href="#" class="group">AUSTRALIAN UNIVERSITIES</a></span><span class="style1">) are public institutions; the private Bond University opened in 1989. Entrance is highly selective and competitive. Since World War II an increasing number of students have been enrolled in postgraduate courses. Australia has developed special programs to meet the needs of children in isolated areas. The Schools of the Air program, for example, uses two-way radios for instruction. HealthAustralia has excellent public and private health-care facilities, and the government pays partial medical expenses for citizens. Medical attention in the Outback is supplied by the Flying Doctor Service. The average life span, crude death rate, and infant mortality rate are similar to those of other industrialized nations. Cultural ActivityA distinctively Australian artistic expression appeared at the end of the 19th century in the works of writers such as </span><span class="style3"><a href="#" class="group">HENRY LAWSON</a></span><span class="style1"> (see </span><span class="style3"><a href="#" class="group">AUSTRALIAN LITERATURE</a></span><span class="style1">). World War II isolated Australia from Europe and America, a situation that spurred the growth of the arts and cultural institutions in Australia. Government funding for the arts is provided through the Australia council, which incorporates a number of boards dealing with visual arts, music, literature, crafts, Aboriginal arts, theater, and community films. The government has also played an important role through the Elizabethan Theatre Trust (founded 1954), the private Australian Council for the Arts (founded 1967). The Australian Ballet and the Australian National Opera. The National Gallery of Victoria had Australia's richest art collection until the Australian National Gallery was founded at Canberra in 1967. The Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney has the world's largest collection of Australian (including Aboriginal) arts. Sydney and Melbourne have notable symphony orchestras, and the spectacular Sydney Opera House (completed in the early 1970s) has attracted an international roster of performers. Dance companies, museums, and musical societies exist in many of the state capitals. Australian artists of international renown include writer </span><span class="style3"><a href="#" class="group">PATRICK WHITE</a></span><span class="style1">, soprano </span><span class="style3"><a href="#" class="group">JOAN SUTHERLAND</a></span><span class="style1">, and painter </span><span class="style3"><a href="#" class="group">SIDNEY NOLAN</a></span><span class="style1">. Attempts are being made to revive and preserve the Aboriginal arts, notably bark painting (see </span><span class="style3"><a href="#" class="group">OCEANIC ART</a></span><span class="style1">).</span></text>
<text><span class="style1">ustralia is primarily a flat low-lying plateau, with about 95% of the land standing less than 600 m (1,970 ft) above sea level. The continent was not affected by recent geological mountain-building forces, and all its landforms are highly eroded; Australia's mountains reach only 2,228 m (7,310 ft) in Mount </span><span class="style3"><a href="#" class="group">KOSCIUSKO</a></span><span class="style1"> in southeastern New South Wales. Physical RegionsAustralia can be divided into three major physical regions: the vast Western Plateau, the Eastern Highlands, and the </span><span class="style3"><a href="#" class="group">GREAT ARTESIAN BASIN</a></span><span class="style1">. Western Plateau. Some 60% of the continent--more than 4,500,000 sq km (1,740,000 sq mi) of central and western Australia--is the Western Plateau. About half of its area lies between 300 and 600 m (1,000 and 2,000 ft) above sea level. A major fault terminates the plateau on the west, separating a strip of coastal lowland about 50 km (30 mi) wide from the interior. The flat, treeless </span><span class="style3"><a href="#" class="group">NULLARBOR PLAIN</a></span><span class="style1"> of south central Australia is the southern edge of the plateau. Erosion of the plateau's thick sandstones has produced mesas and buttes in </span><span class="style3"><a href="#" class="group">ARNHEM LAND</a></span><span class="style1"> in the north and in the Kimberley and Pilbara regions of the northwest. In the center of the continent rise the </span><span class="style3"><a href="#" class="group">MACDONNELL RANGES</a></span><span class="style1">, carved out of ancient sediments and deformed by open folding. They culminate in Mount Zeil, at 1,150 m (4,955 ft), the highest point in the Western Plateau. </span><span class="style3"><a href="#" class="group">AYERS ROCK</a></span><span class="style1"> is to the south of this area. The Western Plateau is marked by aridity, and its desert and semidesert lands are extensive. In clockwise order from the south, these deserts include the </span><span class="style3"><a href="#" class="group">GREAT VICTORIA</a></span><span class="style1">, </span><span class="style3"><a href="#" class="group">GIBSON</a></span><span class="style1">, </span><span class="style3"><a href="#" class="group">GREAT SANDY</a></span><span class="style1">, </span><span class="style3"><a href="#" class="group">SIMPSON</a></span><span class="style1">, Tanami, and Arunta. Much of this area is covered with sand ridges. In central areas the dunes are live (that is, subject to realignment by the elements), but elsewhere they are dead and fixed by vegetation. The dune ridges are strikingly parallel outside sand-source areas, reaching heights as great as 30 m (100 ft) with separations as wide as 500 m (1,650 ft). Sand-ridge country accounts for nearly a quarter of Australia's total land area. Other large portions of the continent's desert and semidesert country consist of gibber (stony desert), formed by the breakup of surface rocks. Eastern Highlands. Uplands, to a width of about 500 km (300 mi), serve as an eastern continental rim. These highlands, also known as the </span><span class="style3"><a href="#" class="group">GREAT DIVIDING RANGE</a></span><span class="style1">, are mainly plateau country and are separated from the discontinuous coastal plain by steep, erosional scarps. Elevations exceed 1,500 m (5,000 ft) in parts of the northern rim, but half the ground here is below 300 m (1,000 ft). The New England Range and Blue Mountains to the south vary in height from 900 to 1,500 m (3,000 to 5,000 ft). The Australian Alps in the extreme southeast reach more than 1,800 m (6,000 ft) and culminate in Mount Kosciusko in the </span><span class="style3"><a href="#" class="group">SNOWY MOUNTAINS</a></span><span class="style1">. A detached and heavily glaciated portion of the Australian Alps occurs in Tasmania, where it exceeds 1,000 m (3,000 ft) in elevation. The Eastern Highlands form a major drainage divide of Australia. Off the tropical northeastern coast lies the </span><span class="style3"><a href="#" class="group">GREAT BARRIER REEF</a></span><span class="style1">, the world's largest coral reef at 2,000 km (1,250 mi) long. Great Artesian Basin. Between the Western Plateau and the Eastern Highlands lie three interior basins, called the Great Artesian Basin. Most of this area is less than 300 m (1,000 ft) in elevation and much of it less than 150 m (500 ft). In the north is the Carpentaria Basin, which lies mostly beneath the sea (Gulf of Carpentaria). The vast Eyre Basin contains Lake </span><span class="style3"><a href="#" class="group">EYRE</a></span><span class="style1">, the shore of which is the continent's lowest point, 15 m (49 ft) below sea level. The Eyre Basin is almost separated from the Murray Basin on the south by the projection of high ground (actually worn mountains) in the </span><span class="style3"><a href="#" class="group">FLINDERS</a></span><span class="style1">, Mount Lofty, and Barrier Ranges. The overlap of the Simpson Desert from the Western Plateau to the interior basins somewhat blurs the physical distinction between the regions. Geological HistoryGeologically, Australia is part of the former southern supercontinent </span><span class="style3"><a href="#" class="group">GONDWANALAND</a></span><span class="style1">, which broke up some 160 million years ago, isolating Australia from the other landmasses of the Southern Hemisphere. The Western Plateau is a stable shield area and has extensive outcrops of Precambrian age rocks (3,000 to 570 million years old). Some Precambrian rocks are also incorporated in the northern half of the Eastern Highlands. These rocks record at least two episodes of compression and mountain building: the first producing granitic masses and highly altered rocks; the second forming a trough (the Adelaide Geosyncline) along the eastern edge of the shield (from the site of the Flinders and Mount Lofty ranges, through the center, to the northwest coast). Parts of the Western Plateau have from time to time been submerged by shelf seas or have sagged into troughs. For example, the Canning Basin in the northwest is filled with sediments that are 600 to 250 million years old; the Eucla Basin in the south contains mainly limestones that are less than 70 million years old. Thick sedimentation in a subsiding trough, now the site of the Eastern Highlands, began some 600 to 500 million years ago, and continued in places until 250 million years ago. Between 400 and 275 million years ago, the trough was twice compressed; mountains were formed, and volcanic chains erupted. Volcanic outbreaks were repeated later throughout the region, especially 25 to 20 million years ago. Most of the volcanic fields are old enough for their cones to have been stripped down by erosion. Plateau basalts are also much broken by erosion. In the south of the mainland, however, volcanic activity persisted until less than a million years ago. Sagging basins in coastal areas subsequently collected sediment, much of it deltaic sand, which is now seen as thick sandstone formations. The major sags, however, were to form Australia's interior basins, which contain sediments dating from about 200 million years ago to the present day. ClimateThe climate of Australia varies with latitude. The northern part of the continent is tropical and influenced by the trade winds. The southern parts lie in the belt of westerly winds and have a more temperate climate. The vast center of the continent is arid and extremely hot during the summer (December to March). The tropical region, and especially the northern coast, experiences a hot, wet (monsoonal) summer. The average January temperature in </span><span class="style3"><a href="#" class="group">DARWIN</a></span><span class="style1"> is 28 deg C (83 deg F), and the average annual rainfall is 1,240 mm (59 in), nearly 80% of which falls between December and March. In winter, hurricanes tend to develop over the Coral and Arafura seas, some following the path of the East Australian Current as far south as Sydney. Two parts of southern Australia have dry summers and mild, wet winters, resembling a Mediterranean climate. The southwest experiences hot, dry summers, dominated by subtropical high-pressure systems. Average temperatures at </span><span class="style3"><a href="#" class="group">PERTH</a></span><span class="style1"> are 23 deg C (74 deg F) in January and 13 deg C (55 deg F) in July; the average annual rainfall is 900 mm (35 in). A similar climate affects an area around </span><span class="style3"><a href="#" class="group">ADELAIDE</a></span><span class="style1">, where brush fires caused extensive damage during the unusually dry 1982-83 summer. Southern New South Wales, Victoria, and Tasmania receive the most dependable year-round precipitation of any region in Australia. The eastern coast of Queensland and New South Wales receive tropical summer rain; with increasing distance southward, however, east coast temperatures decline and the seasonality of rainfall becomes less marked. On the interior of the southern Eastern Highlands, which serve as a climatic divide by acting as a barrier to rainfall, is a subhumid belt, important for agriculture. About half of Australia is arid. Dry seasons average eight months in length and the mean annual rainfall is 255 mm (10 in) or less. Summers are hot and winters are warm, and the daily temperature variation is great. The average temperature at </span><span class="style3"><a href="#" class="group">ALICE SPRINGS</a></span><span class="style1"> is 26 deg C (79 deg F) in January and 12 deg C (53 deg F) in July. As with most of Australia, precipitation is undependable, and severe droughts and on rare occasions floods occur. The arid zone is encircled by a broad belt of semiarid climate. North of the tropic of Capricorn this belt records a wet summer season; south of the tropic of Capricorn, and especially in southwest Australia, the average summer is distinctly dry. Many livestock ranches are located in the semiarid area, which is often beset by prolonged droughts. Some droughts have lasted 10 years. Extreme high temperatures in the arid and semiarid regions exceed 38 deg C (100 deg F). Snow is rare except in the higher parts of the southern Eastern Highlands, principally the Snowy Mountains. DrainageThe Great Dividing Range divides Australia's east-flowing rivers from the west-flowing rivers. About half the continent, however, does not drain into the sea. Most of the rivers that rise in the Eastern Highlands and flow west either dry up or are seasonal. An exception is the Murray-Darling system, the flow of which is great enough to survive the crossing of large tracts of arid land before emptying into Encounter Bay southeast of Adelaide. This is Australia's principal river system and includes the </span><span class="style3"><a href="#" class="group">DARLING</a></span><span class="style1">, </span><span class="style3"><a href="#" class="group">MURRAY</a></span><span class="style1">, </span><span class="style3"><a href="#" class="group">MURRUMBIDGEE</a></span><span class="style1">, Barwon, and Lachlan rivers. About 14% of the continent is drained by the Murray-Darling system, although its driest areas are noncontributing. Other than the Murray-Darling system, only 36% of Australia is externally drained. These areas include the island of Tasmania, the area east of the Great Dividing Range, and parts of the coastal north and northwest. Principal rivers, all short, include the Flinders, Belyando, Mackenzie, and Fitzroy in the northeast; Hawkesbury and Shoalhaven in the southeast; Murchison, Gascoyne, Ashburton, and another Fitzroy in the northwest; and Victoria, Roper, and Daly in the north. These rivers range between 350 and 830 km (220 and 520 mi) in length. About 35% of the continent (in the Western Plateau) has uncoordinated drainage, including many ephemeral lakes (those that form after rainfalls and shrink by evaporating) and disrupted streams. The enclosed Lake Eyre Basin, which makes up 14% of the continent, contains the occasionally flowing Cooper's Creek and the Diamantina, Georgina, and Macumba rivers. Lake Eyre, Australia's largest "lake," is more often than not a dry depression with a hard salt crust. Until 1950 the lake bed was dry for about a century, and during the rainy early 1970s it filled to unusually high levels. The Bulloo Bancannia Basin, adjacent to the Lake Eyre Basin on the southeast, is also internally drained and accounts for about 1% of the continent's area. In all regions where drainage is internal or uncoordinated, flow regimes are erratic and usually depend on day-to-day rainfall. The externally flowing rivers generally reflect the seasonal rainfall of the climate, but flow averages conceal strong year-to-year variations. Dams on many Australian rivers (especially those of the Murray-Darling system) aid in the maintaining of relatively steady stream flows. SoilsAustralia's extensive arid regions have sandy or stony desert soils, although large areas on northern tablelands and in the central ranges are devoid of soils. In these dry areas, only the red desert loams, which support a scant pasture, possess farming potential. Light-textured brown soils with high sand content are found in the regions of semiarid climate and support vegetation suitable for livestock grazing. Heavy-textured gray-brown soils have formed on silty and clayey alluvium, notably in the Riverina district in southern New South Wales, where irrigation with water from the Murray River has made for productive agriculture. The most fertile soils are the black-earth and related red-brown soils, which occur in regions receiving from 380 mm to 650 mm (15 to 25 in) of precipitation annually. The humus-rich and moisture-retentive black-earth soils occur in the subhumid areas of the interior Eastern Highlands, and the red-brown soils are found in semiarid areas. Australia's chief wheat and animal products are produced on such soils. In more humid areas with annual precipitation in excess of 650 mm (25 in), leaching can make soils acid and naturally infertile. Research from about 1945 on has shown that artificial fertilizers can help replace leached soil nutrients and turn the leached podzols of temperate areas into productive pastureland. Also leached and the subject of ongoing research on tropical pasture are the yellow and red loams and gray and brown clays in northern Australia. Whereas most soil types in Australia reflect climatic conditions, leached soils formed during previous, wetter climatic cycles also occur in some of Australia's drier areas. VegetationVegetation is characterized by a dominance of hard-leaf evergreen plants (sclerophylls). The evergreens include some 600 species of eucalyptus trees (called gum trees in Australia) and 800 species of acacia trees (wattles). The hard leaves act as a deterrent to water evaporation, enabling the plants to survive dry seasons and semiaridity. Australia's major vegetation belts broadly correspond to climate zones. Tropical rain forest in the north and northwest coastal fringes include palms, hoop pines, tree ferns, and mangroves in coastal swamps. On the east coast, south of 26 deg south latitude, tropical rain forest is replaced by subtropical and temperate rain forest of palms, tree ferns, and eucalyptus, and eventually by beeches and conifers in Tasmania. Rain forests cover about 9% of the continent. On the drier, western slopes of the Great Dividing Range the vegetation cover thins to subtropical or temperate woodlands of eucalyptus and scrub, accounting for 9% of Australia's land area. The semiarid belt supports mainly grassland south of the tropic of Capricorn and savanna woodland to the north. Together they constitute 26% of the continent. In areas of greater dryness, low-growing saltbush and bluebush become common. The extremely dry regions of Australia are distinguished by the highly specialized mulga, a shrubby acacia important as a forage plant. Valuable hardwoods such as jarra and kauri grow in the summer-dry southwest. A belt of mallee, a small, salt-tolerant eucalyptus, grows on sodium-rich soils bordering the Great Australian Bight. Climatic influences on vegetation include bushfires, which are especially common in the southeast and left hundreds homeless in 1983. Human influences include the disastrous overgrazing of the semiarid country and the introduction of new species such as prickly pear and paspalum (crabgrass), the latter to replace native tussock grasses as forage material. Animal LifeBefore the coming of humans, and especially before the landing of Europeans, Australia's pouched mammals (marsupials) evolved for about 50 million years without predation or competition by placental mammals. The pouched Tasmanian wolf was never abundant enough to prevent the varied evolution and wide dispersion of kangaroos, wallabies, koalas, wombats, and others. Also peculiar to Australia are the egg-laying mammals (monotremes): the platypus and the echidna (or spiny anteater). Bird life is highly varied and includes the mallee fowl, cockatoo, lyrebird, various parrots, the kookaburra (or laughing jackass), and the large, flightless emu. Numerous species of snakes exist, many of which are poisonous. Among insects, leaf eaters, locusts, termites, and blowflies (which attack livestock) are destructive. The introduction from Europe of cattle, sheep, rabbits, foxes, rats, and cats has altered the natural picture and in some cases has been disruptive. Also, some native species have been hunted intensively. Despite the exploitation of kangaroos (for example, for pet-food manufacture), however, the numbers of large forms may be greater today than ever before, because of the provision of water tanks on ranches. Mineral ResourcesAustralia possesses enormous mineral resources. Coal reserves are large, and although much is high in ash content, about a third is of coking quality. New discoveries of iron ore in the Hammersley Range (Pilbara region) of the northwest have helped to keep annual production increasing. Vast bauxite reserves are concentrated in the Grove and Cape York peninsulas. Other abundant metal ores include zinc, lead, nickel, and copper. Gemstones include sapphires from the northern Great Dividing Range and the distinctive Australian fire opals from inland fields in the southeast. Petroleum, first exploited in Queensland in 1964, now comes chiefly from the continental shelf off northwestern Australia and the Bass Strait. Production is increasing and supplies about two-thirds of domestic consumption. Recoverable reserves of natural gas were little tapped before 1969, but output in 1987 had increased to about 15,806 million cu m (558,184 million cu ft) a year. At double the present output and consumption rates, coal, oil, and gas would last 100 to 300 years. Water ResourcesThe driest of continents, Australia must carefully regulate its existing water resources. Even in some externally drained basins, water supply is at times deficient. Significant groundwater reserves occur beneath one quarter of Australia, most prominently in the Great Artesian Basin. Much of the inland area depends on these for water for stock and domestic use, but the underground supplies are generally overexploited and in places too salty or otherwise unfit for human consumption.</span></text>
<text><span class="style1">ustralia is the world's smallest continent and sixth largest country. With proportionately more desert land than any other continent, Australia has a low population density. Lying completely in the Southern Hemisphere, Australia is bounded by the Indian Ocean on the west and south and by the Pacific Ocean on the east. These oceans merge on the north in the Arafura Sea between Australia and Indonesia and New Guinea, and on the south in the Bass Strait. The coastline length, estimated at 19,200 km (12,000 mi), is remarkably short for so large an area, a result of the relative lack of indentation. Major inlets other than the Gulf of </span><span class="style3"><a href="#" class="group">CARPENTARIA</a></span><span class="style1"> and the </span><span class="style3"><a href="#" class="group">GREAT AUSTRALIAN BIGHT</a></span><span class="style1"> are few. A self-governing member of the Commonwealth of Nations, Australia celebrated its bicentennial in 1988 (see </span><span class="style3"><a href="#" class="group">BICENTENNIAL, AUSTRALIAN</a></span><span class="style1">). It is a federation of five mainland states (</span><span class="style3"><a href="#" class="group">NEW SOUTH WALES</a></span><span class="style1">, </span><span class="style3"><a href="#" class="group">QUEENSLAND</a></span><span class="style1">, </span><span class="style3"><a href="#" class="group">SOUTH AUSTRALIA</a></span><span class="style1">, </span><span class="style3"><a href="#" class="group">VICTORIA</a></span><span class="style1">, </span><span class="style3"><a href="#" class="group">WESTERN AUSTRALIA</a></span><span class="style1">) and one island state (</span><span class="style3"><a href="#" class="group">TASMANIA</a></span><span class="style1">), as well as two territories (</span><span class="style3"><a href="#" class="group">AUSTRALIAN CAPITAL TERRITORY</a></span><span class="style1">, </span><span class="style3"><a href="#" class="group">NORTHERN TERRITORY</a></span><span class="style1">). The country's name derives form the Latin terra australis incognita, meaning "unknown southern land," which resulted from a confusion between Australia and Antarctica on early world maps. In many ways Australia is unusual among continents. It lacks major relief features and has a high proportion of dry land. The continent's isolation from other landmasses accounts for its unique varieties of vegetation and animal life, and for the existence of a Paleolithic (Old Stone Age) culture among the Aborigines. Except for Antarctica, Australia was probably the last continent to be inhabited by man and the last to be explored and settled by Europeans. It is the only continent comprising a single nation-state. Dutch explorers first sighted Australia in the early 17th century. Capt. </span><span class="style3"><a href="#" class="group">JAMES COOK</a></span><span class="style1"> explored the east coast in 1770 and claimed the land for Great Britain. In 1778 the first settlement (</span><span class="style3"><a href="#" class="group">SYDNEY</a></span><span class="style1">) was founded at an excellent harbor on the southeast coast. British convicts played an important role in the early history of the territory. The discovery of gold and other ores attracted immigrants, but Australia remained a primarily agricultural country until World War II. Subsequent industrialization has been rapid, and today Australia ranks as one of the world's most economically developed countries, although vast areas of the interior, known as the Outback, remain all but uninhabited. (See </span><span class="style3"><a href="#" class="group">AUSTRALIA, HISTORY OF</a></span><span class="style1">.)OFFICIAL NAME. Commonwealth of Australia LAND. Area: 7,682,300 sq km (2,966,151 sq mi). Capital: Canberra (1987 est. pop., 289,800). Largest city: Sydney (1987 est. pop., 3,531,600). Elevations. Highest--Mount Kosciusko, 2,228 m (7,310 ft); lowest--15 m (49 ft) below sea level, at Lake Eyre. PEOPLE. Population (1990 est.): 17,100,000; density 2.2 persons per sq km (5.8 per sq mi). Distribution (1990): 86% urban, 14% rural. Annual growth (1990): 0.8%. Official language: English. Major religions: Protestantism, Roman Catholicism. ECONOMY. GNP (1988): $204.45 billion; $12,390 per capita. Labor distribution (1987): commerce and services--66%; manufacturing--16%; construction--7%; government and public authorities--5%; agriculture and fishing--6%. Foreign trade (1988): imports--$35.5 billion; exports--$32.4 billion; principal trade partners--Japan, United States, United Kingdom, New Zealand. Currency: 1 Australian dollar = 100 cents. GOVERNMENT. Type: Federal parliamentary state. Government leaders (1991): Catherine Tizard--governor-general; Robert J. Hawke--prime minister. Legislature: Parliament. Political subdivisions: 6 states, 2 territories. EDUCATION AND HEALTH. Literacy (1987): 98.5% of adult population. Universities (1989): 20. Hospital beds (1987): 87,586. Physicians (1986): 36,610. Life expectancy (1987): women--79.5; men--73.0. Infant mortality (1990): 8.7 per 1,000 live births. COMMUNICATIONS. Railroads (1986): 38,760 km (24,084 mi) government-owned. Roads (1988): 804,700 km (500,016 mi) total. Major ports: 12. Major airfields: 9. </span></text>
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