Why Australia is not an island?
Australia (continent)
The continent primarily sits on the Indo-Australian Plate. Because of its central location on its tectonic plate Australia doesn't have any active volcanic regions, the only continent with this distinction. The lands were joined with Antarctica as part of the southern supercontinent Gondwana until the plate began to drift north about 96 million years ago. For most of the time since then, Australia–New Guinea remained a continuous landmass. When the last glacial period ended in about 10,000 BC, rising sea levels formed Bass Strait, separating Tasmania from the mainland. Then between about 8,000 and 6,500 BC, the lowlands in the north were flooded by the sea, separating New Guinea, the Aru Islands, and the Australian mainland.
History of Oceania
Indigenous Australians are the original inhabitants of the Australian continent and nearby islands. Indigenous Australians migrated from Africa to Asia around 70,000 years ago and arrived in Australia around 50,000 years ago. The Torres Strait Islanders are indigenous to the Torres Strait Islands, which are at the northernmost tip of Queensland near Papua New Guinea. The term "Aboriginal" is traditionally applied to only the indigenous inhabitants of mainland Australia and Tasmania, along with some of the adjacent islands, i.e.: the "first peoples". "Indigenous Australians" is an inclusive term used when referring to both Aboriginal and Torres Strait islanders.
Australia–New Zealand relations
Unlike Canadians and Americans, who share a mainland border, Australia and New Zealand are more than apart in the Tasman Sea. Arguing against Australian statehood, New Zealand's Premier, Sir John Hall, remarked that there were "1,200 reasons" not to join the federation.
Land of Oz
"Oz" is a common vernacular contraction of "Australia" (Australia—Aussie—Aus—Oz). Australia is a large continent predominated by desert regions, with pockets of intense green tropical, sub-tropical and sub-alpine greenlands and rainforests. It is quite possible that Baum took the popular nickname of Australia as the national name for his fictional world. Also note that many fans place Oz in the South Pacific, see Location above. However, according to the Oxford English dictionary, the first references to Australia by this name were made in 1902—after the first book had been published. Nevertheless, spoken references would certainly have been in use before first appearing in print (as noted by Oxford), hence possibly before the writing of the book.
Australia Day
Both before the establishment of Australia Day as the national day of Australia, and in the years after its creation, several dates have been proposed for its celebration and, at various times, the possibility of moving Australia Day to an alternative date has been mooted. Some reasons put forward are that the current date, celebrating the foundation of the Colony of New South Wales, lacks national significance; that the day falls on school holidays which limits the engagement of schoolchildren in the event; and that it fails to encompass members of the indigenous community and some others who perceive the day as commemorating the date of an invasion of their land. Connected to this is the suggestion that moving the date would be seen as a significant symbolic act.
Outline of Australia
Australia refers to both the continent of Australia and to the Commonwealth of Australia, the sovereign country. Australia, the world's smallest continent, is in the Southern Hemisphere and borders both the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean.
Republicanism in Australia
A central argument made by Australian republicans is that, as Australia is an independent country, it is inappropriate and anomalous for Australia to share the person of its monarch with the United Kingdom. Republicans argue that the Australian monarch is not Australian and, as a national and resident of another country, cannot adequately represent Australia or Australian national aspirations, either to itself or to the rest of the world. Former Chief Justice Gerard Brennan stated that "so long as we retain the existing system our head of state is determined for us essentially by the parliament at Westminster". As Australian Republican Movement member Frank Cassidy put it in a speech on the issue: "In short, we want a resident for President."
Fauna of Australia
Australia is a member of the International Whaling Commission and is strongly opposed to commercial whaling—all cetacean species are protected in Australian waters. Australia is also a signatory to the CITES agreement and prohibits the export of endangered species. Protected areas have been created in every state and territory to protect and preserve the country's unique ecosystems. These protected areas include national parks and other reserves, as well as 64 wetlands registered under the Ramsar Convention and 16 World Heritage Sites. , 10.8% (774,619.51 km²) of the total land area of Australia is within protected areas. Protected marine zones have been created in many areas to preserve marine biodiversity; , these areas cover about 7% (646,000 km²) of Australia's marine jurisdiction. The Great Barrier Reef is managed by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority under specific federal and state legislation. Some of Australia's fisheries are already overexploited, and quotas have been set for the sustainable harvest of many marine species.
Constitution of Australia
At various times since Federation, debates have occurred over whether Australia should become a republic. On 6 November 1999, Australians rejected a proposal to remove the Queen and replace the Governor-General with a President appointed by a two-thirds majority of the members of the Commonwealth Parliament.
List of islands of Australia
This is a list of selected Australian islands grouped by State or Territory.
States and territories of Australia
All states and the two largest internal territories are partially self-governing, as well as being represented in the federal parliament; the other territories are administered by the federal government. Since 2015, federal control has also been extended to the formerly self-governing territory of Norfolk Island. The third internal territory is the Jervis Bay Territory (JBT) which is on the coast of New South Wales south of Sydney and east of Canberra. Three of the external territories are inhabited; the others are uninhabited, apart from temporary-resident scientists.
History of Australia
Manning Clark wrote that the ancestors of the Aborigines were slow to reach Tasmania, probably owing to an ice barrier existing across the South East of the continent. The Aborigines, he noted, did not develop agriculture, probably owing to a lack of seed bearing plants and animals suitable for domestication. Thus, the population remained low. Clark considered that the three potential pre-European colonising powers and traders of East Asia—the Hindu-Buddhists of southern India, the Muslims of Northern India and the Chinese—each petered out in their southward advance and did not attempt a settlement across the straits separating Indonesia from Australia. But trepang fisherman did reach the north coast, which they called "Marege" or "land of the trepang". For centuries, Makassan trade flourished with Aborigines on Australia's north coast, particularly with the Yolngu people of northeast Arnhem Land.
List of proposed states of Australia
Papua New Guinea is physically closest of any country to geographically remote Australia, with some of the Torres Strait Islands just off the main island of the country. Its Southern part became an Australian colony in 1902, while its Northern part was seized by Australia from Germany in 1914 and administered as a "C" Mandate of the League of Nations from 1920. Both territories were amalgamated after Second World War into a single Australian colony. In 1953, the editor of the conservative "Quadrant" magazine, Professor James McAuley, wrote that the territory would be "a coconut republic which would do little good for itself", and advocated its "perpetual union" with Australia, with "equal citizenship rights", but this was rejected by the Australian government. Papua New Guinea was granted self-government and full independence in 1975.
Australian migration zone
The Australian migration zone is a legal device created by the Australian government for the purpose of Australia's visa policy and immigration policy. In the Australian migration zone, which covers such Australian controlled territories as the government may determine, a non-citizen must hold an Australian visa. Without such a visa, or a bridging visa, the alien is treated as an "unauthorised arrival". Prior to 2001, the Australian migration zone consisted of the mainland, and some external territories.
Quarantine
Australia has perhaps the world's strictest quarantine standards. Quarantine in northern Australia is important because of its proximity to South-east Asia and the Pacific, which have many pests and diseases not present in Australia. For this reason, the region from Cairns to Broome—including the Torres Strait—is the focus for many important quarantine activities that protect all Australians. As Australia has been geographically isolated from other major continents for millions of years, there is an endemically unique ecosystem free of several severe pests and diseases that are present in many parts of the world. If other products are brought inside along with pests and diseases, it would damage the ecosystem seriously and add millions of costs in the local agricultural businesses.
Principality of Hutt River
In 2007 the High Court of Australia dismissed an application by Casley for leave to appeal against a judgment against him in favour of the Commissioner of Taxation relating to Casley's failure to file tax returns. Casley argued he resided in the "Hutt River Province" and that that is not part of Australia and not subject to Australian taxation law. The Court dismissed Casley's application and found that "the arguments advanced by the applicants [are] fatuous, frivolous and vexatious." This seems to determine conclusively that, so far as Australia's highest court of law is concerned, the Principality does not have independent status as a country.
Australia (disambiguation)
Australia is a country in the Southern Hemisphere.
Geography of Australia
Australia also has several minor territories; the federal government administers a separate area within New South Wales, the Jervis Bay Territory, as a naval base and sea port for the national capital. In addition Australia has the following inhabited, external territories: Norfolk Island, Christmas Island, Cocos (Keeling) Islands, and several largely uninhabited external territories: Ashmore and Cartier Islands, Coral Sea Islands, and Heard Island and McDonald Islands. Australia also claims a portion of Antarctica as the Australian Antarctic Territory, although this claim is not widely recognized.
Ashmore and Cartier Islands
As Ashmore Reef is the closest point of Australian territory to Indonesia, it was a popular target for people smugglers transporting asylum seekers en route to Australia. Once they had landed on Ashmore Island, asylum seekers could claim to have entered Australian migration zone and request to be processed as refugees. The use of Ashmore Island for this purpose created great notoriety during late 2001, when refugee arrivals became a major political issue in Australia. The Australian Government argued that as Australia was not the country of first asylum for these "boat people", Australia did not have a responsibility to accept them.
Geography of Australia
By far the largest part of Australia is arid or semi-arid. A total of 18% of Australia's mainland consists of named deserts, while additional areas are considered to have a desert climate based on low rainfall and high temperature. Only the south-east and south-west corners have a temperate climate and moderately fertile soil. The northern part of the country has a tropical climate: part is tropical rainforests, part grasslands, and part desert.
Matthew Flinders
Flinders made three voyages to the southern ocean between 1791 and 1810. In the second voyage, George Bass and Flinders confirmed that Van Diemen's Land (now Tasmania) was an island. In the third voyage, Flinders circumnavigated the mainland of what was to be called Australia, accompanied by Aboriginal man Bungaree.
Heading back to England in 1803, Flinders' vessel needed urgent repairs at Isle de France (Mauritius). Although Britain and France were at war, Flinders thought the scientific nature of his work would ensure safe passage, but a suspicious governor kept him under arrest for more than six years. In captivity, he recorded details of his voyages for future publication, and put forward his rationale for naming the new continent 'Australia', as an umbrella term for New Holland and New South Wales – a suggestion taken up later by Governor Macquarie.
Australia
Surrounded by the Indian and Pacific oceans, Australia is separated from Asia by the Arafura and Timor seas, with the Coral Sea lying off the Queensland coast, and the Tasman Sea lying between Australia and New Zealand. The world's smallest continent and sixth largest country by total area, Australia—owing to its size and isolation—is often dubbed the "island continent", and is sometimes considered the world's largest island. Australia has of coastline (excluding all offshore islands), and claims an extensive Exclusive Economic Zone of . This exclusive economic zone does not include the Australian Antarctic Territory. Apart from Macquarie Island, Australia lies between latitudes 9° and 44°S, and longitudes 112° and 154°E.
Gay and Lesbian Kingdom of the Coral Sea Islands
In May 2010, Dale Anderson was invited to (but did not attend) a conference in Sydney for the leaders of all the micronations in the world, in order to determine ways to obtain recognition as sovereign countries. The Gay Government announced that the Emperor would not be attending the conference on the grounds that the Gay and Lesbian Kingdom of the Coral Sea Islands being a former overseas external Territory of Australia was not a micronation.
Our Generation (film)
Unlike the US, Canada and New Zealand, no treaty was ever negotiated between the lawful owners of Australia and those who took their land. This makes Australia the only Commonwealth nation where a treaty was never made with the Indigenous people. British colonisers avoided the creation of a treaty by falsely claiming that Australia was terra nullius or uninhabited when they arrived. Many Aboriginal people feel that their sovereignty was not and still is not respected and that a treaty should be created.
States and territories of Australia
All states, (internal) territories and the external territory of Coral Sea Islands were part of Australia at federation and are constitutionally part of the Commonwealth. Northern Territory was part of South Australia, Australian Capital Territory and Jervis Bay Territory were part of New South Wales, and Coral Sea Islands was part of Queensland. Ashmore and Cartier Islands was accepted by Australia in 1934 and annexed to Northern Territory prior to the adoption of the Statute of Westminster in 1942 and, as such, is deemed to form part of Australia proper.
Torres Strait Islanders
Torres Strait Islanders (
) are the indigenous people of the Torres Strait Islands, part of Queensland, Australia. They are distinct from the Aboriginal people of the rest of Australia, and are generally referred to separately. There are also two Torres Strait Islander communities on the nearby coast of the mainland at Bamaga and Seisia.
Dependent territory
Although all territories of Australia are considered to be fully integrated in its federative system, and the official status of an external territory does not differ largely from that of a mainland territory (except in regards to immigration law), debate remains as to whether the external territories are integral parts of Australia, due to their not being part of Australia in 1901, when its constituent states federated (with the exception of Coral Sea Islands which was part of Queensland). They are often listed separately for statistical purposes.
Today (Australian TV program)
Due to the fact that Australia has more than one time zone, "Today" is not broadcast live to the entire nation.
Western Australia
Western Australia (abbreviated as WA) is a state occupying the entire western third of Australia. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, and the Southern Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east and South Australia to the south-east. Western Australia is Australia's largest state, with a total land area of 2,529,875 square kilometres (976,790 sq mi), and the second-largest country subdivision in the world, surpassed only by Russia's Sakha Republic. The state has about 2.6 million inhabitants  around 11 percent of the national total  of whom the vast majority (92 per cent) live in the south-west corner, 79 per cent of the population living in the Perth area, leaving the remainder of the state sparsely populated.
States and territories of Australia
Norfolk Island's status is controversial, with the present () government taking measures to integrate the territory into Australia proper (including representation in parliament and compulsory voting). The Norfolk Islanders have not formally consented to this change in constitutional status and assert that they are not Australian.
Seven Third Summits
The Australian continent is defined as comprising the mainland of Australia and proximate islands on the same continental shelf, including Tasmania and New Guinea. In the convention of the seven continents, one of the continents is the region of Australasia, which includes for example the mountainous islands of New Zealand. For both the geological and conventional continent, New Guinea's Puncak Jaya / Carstensz Pyramid () and Puncak Mandala () are the two highest summits. When considering a continent as a continuous landmass surrounded by oceans, mainland Australia would be its own continent, with Mount Kosciuszko () and Mount Townsend () as its two highest summits.
Australia
With the loss of its American colonies in 1783, the British Government sent a fleet of ships, the "First Fleet", under the command of Captain Arthur Phillip, to establish a new penal colony in New South Wales. A camp was set up and the flag raised at Sydney Cove, Port Jackson, on 26 January 1788, a date which became Australia's national day, Australia Day. A British settlement was established in Van Diemen's Land, now known as Tasmania, in 1803, and it became a separate colony in 1825. The United Kingdom formally claimed the western part of Western Australia (the Swan River Colony) in 1828. Separate colonies were carved from parts of New South Wales: South Australia in 1836, Victoria in 1851, and Queensland in 1859. The Northern Territory was founded in 1911 when it was excised from South Australia. South Australia was founded as a "free province"—it was never a penal colony. Victoria and Western Australia were also founded "free", but later accepted transported convicts. A campaign by the settlers of New South Wales led to the end of convict transportation to that colony; the last convict ship arrived in 1848.
Demographics of Oceania
Although Christmas Island and the Cocos (Keeling) Islands belong to the Commonwealth of Australia and are inhabited, they are nearer Indonesia than the Australian mainland, and are commonly associated with Asia instead of Oceania.
Australasia
The Australasian ecozone is an ecological region that is coincident, but not synonymous (by some definitions), with the geographic region of Australasia. The ecozone includes Australia, the island of New Guinea (including Papua New Guinea and the Indonesian province of Papua), and the eastern part of the Indonesian archipelago, including the island of Sulawesi, the Maluku islands (the Indonesian provinces of Maluku and North Maluku) and islands of Lombok, Sumbawa, Sumba, Flores and Timor, often known as the Lesser Sundas. The Australasian ecozone also includes several Pacific island groups, including the Bismarck Archipelago, Vanuatu, the Solomon Islands, and New Caledonia. New Zealand and its surrounding islands are a distinctive sub-region of the Australasian ecozone. The rest of Indonesia is part of the Indomalayan ecozone.
Palm Island, Queensland
Self-appointed "president" of Palm Island, Jeremy Geia, symbolically declared independence from Australia in 2001. The "Peoples Democratic Republic of Palm Island" was an expression of grievances against the Australian and Queensland Governments for neglect of Palm Islanders. There were concerns at the time that this activism would interfere in a major Government investigation into sexual abuse by making victims too uncomfortable to come to the mainland for examination.
Continent
The most restricted meaning of "continent" is that of a continuous area of land or mainland, with the coastline and any land boundaries forming the edge of the continent. In this sense the term "continental Europe" (sometimes referred to in Britain as "the Continent") is used to refer to mainland Europe, excluding islands such as Great Britain, Ireland, Malta and Iceland, and the term "continent of Australia" may refer to the mainland of Australia, excluding Tasmania and New Guinea. Similarly, the "continental United States" refers to the 48 contiguous states and the District of Columbia in central North America and may include Alaska in the northwest of the continent (the two being separated by Canada), while excluding Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and Guam in the oceans.
Australia
The Great Barrier Reef, the world's largest coral reef, lies a short distance off the north-east coast and extends for over . Mount Augustus, claimed to be the world's largest monolith, is located in Western Australia. At , Mount Kosciuszko on the Great Dividing Range is the highest mountain on the Australian mainland. Even taller are Mawson Peak (at ), on the remote Australian external territory of Heard Island, and, in the Australian Antarctic Territory, Mount McClintock and Mount Menzies, at and respectively.
Australia's size gives it a wide variety of landscapes, with tropical rainforests in the north-east, mountain ranges in the south-east, south-west and east, and dry desert in the centre. The desert or semi-arid land commonly known as the outback makes up by far the largest portion of land. Australia is the driest inhabited continent; its annual rainfall averaged over continental area is less than 500 mm. The population density, 2.8 inhabitants per square kilometre, is among the lowest in the world, although a large proportion of the population lives along the temperate south-eastern coastline.
Eastern Australia is marked by the Great Dividing Range, which runs parallel to the coast of Queensland, New South Wales and much of Victoria. The name is not strictly accurate, because parts of the range consist of low hills, and the highlands are typically no more than in height. The coastal uplands and a belt of Brigalow grasslands lie between the coast and the mountains, while inland of the dividing range are large areas of grassland. These include the western plains of New South Wales, and the Einasleigh Uplands, Barkly Tableland, and Mulga Lands of inland Queensland. The northernmost point of the east coast is the tropical-rainforested Cape York Peninsula.
Climate of Australia
Australia's tropical/subtropical location and cold waters off the western coast make most of Western Australia a hot desert with aridity a marked feature of a greater part of the continent. These cold waters produce precious little moisture needed on the mainland. A 2005 study by Australian and American researchers investigated the desertification of the interior, and suggested that one explanation was related to human settlers who arrived about 50,000 years ago.
Freshwater fish of Australia
The small number of species found in Australian inland waters is partly because Australia is the driest continent on earth. Rainfall is sporadic over much of the continent, and fish cannot live in many of the desert regions of South Australia and Western Australia. Most freshwater species are found in tropical or subtropical regions.
Australasian realm
The Australasian realm is a biogeographic realm that is coincident, but not synonymous (by some definitions), with the geographical region of Australasia. The realm includes Australia, the island of New Guinea (including Papua New Guinea and the Indonesian province of Papua), and the eastern part of the Indonesian archipelago, including the island of Sulawesi, the Moluccan islands (the Indonesian provinces of Maluku and North Maluku) and islands of Lombok, Sumbawa, Sumba, Flores, and Timor, often known as the Lesser Sundas. The Australasian realm also includes several Pacific island groups, including the Bismarck Archipelago, Vanuatu, the Solomon Islands, and New Caledonia. New Zealand and its surrounding islands are a distinctive sub-region of the Australasian realm. The rest of Indonesia is part of the Indomalayan realm.
Climate of Australia
Because Australia is a small continent, separated from polar regions by the Southern Ocean, it is not subject to movements of frigid polar air during winter, of the type that sweep over the continents in the northern hemisphere during their winter. Consequently, Australia's winter is relatively mild, with less contrast between summer and winter temperatures than in the northern continents. Seasonal highs and lows can still be considerable. Temperatures have ranged from above to well below . Minimum temperatures are moderated.
Monarchies in Oceania
The realm of Australia comprises six federated states and three federal territories (including the Jervis Bay Territory). It also includes a number of external territories administered by the federal government: Ashmore and Cartier Islands, Christmas Island, Cocos (Keeling) Islands, Coral Sea Islands, Heard Island and McDonald Islands, Norfolk Island, and the Australian Antarctic Territory.
List of divided islands
There are islands that lie across different provinces or states of the same country. An example would be Killiniq Island of Canada, which is divided between Newfoundland and Labrador and Nunavut, whereas Melville Island and Victoria Island are divided between Nunavut and the Northwest Territories. In Australia, the Boundary Islet is divided between Tasmania and Victoria. Smith Island in Chesapeake Bay and Assateague Island, a barrier island on the Atlantic coast of the United States, are divided between the states of Maryland and Virginia. Fenwick Island, on the coast immediately to the north, is divided between Maryland and Delaware. Ellis Island, itself in the United States state of New Jersey, contains a true exclave of the state of New York; elsewhere in New York Harbor, the northern tip of Shooters Island, otherwise in New York, is in New Jersey. Zhongshan Island, in China, is divided between the province of Guangdong and the special administrative region of Macau.
Environment of Australia
Although most of Australia is semi-arid or desert, it covers a diverse range of habitats, from alpine heaths to tropical rainforests, and is recognised as a megadiverse country. Because of the great age and consequent low levels of fertility of the continent, its extremely variable weather patterns, and its long-term geographic isolation, much of Australia's biota is unique and diverse. About 85% of flowering plants, 84% of mammals, more than 45% of birds, and 89% of in-shore, temperate-zone fish are endemic. Many of Australia's ecoregions, and the species within those regions, are threatened by human activities and introduced plant and animal species. The federal "Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999" is a legal framework for the protection of threatened species. Numerous protected areas have been created under the national Biodiversity Action Plan to protect and preserve unique ecosystems; 65 wetlands are listed under the Ramsar Convention, and 16 World Heritage Sites have been established. Australia was ranked 13th in the world on the 2005 Environmental Sustainability Index.
Peter Costello
Costello advocated for change to a republic at the Australian Constitutional Convention 1998. He rejected any suggestion that Australia was not already an independent nation and said that the Australian Constitution works "remarkably well". It was the institution of monarchy that was the crux of his argument for change:
Clara Seekamp
""What is it that constitutes a foreigner?...'Could you not have found some other and' more truthful excuse for all the illegal and even murderous excesses committed by your soldiery and butchers ? Could you not admit that the whole affair was brought about by acts of our tyrannical, corrupt, and unjust local government?... What is this country else than Australia? Is it any more England than it is Ireland or Scotland, France or America, Italy or Germany ? Is the population, wealth, intelligence, enterprise and learning wholly and solely English ?... No, the population of Australia is not English but Australian, and sui generis. Any one who immigrates into this country, no matter from what clime or of what people, and contributes towards the development of its resources and its wealth, is no longer a foreigner...The latest immigrant is the youngest Australian""
Continent
By convention, "continents are understood to be large, continuous, discrete masses of land, ideally separated by expanses of water." Several of the seven conventionally recognized continents are not discrete landmasses separated completely by water. The criterion "large" leads to arbitrary classification: Greenland, with a surface area of is considered the world's largest island, while Australia, at is deemed the smallest continent.
Politics of Norfolk Island
Controversy exists as to the exact status of Norfolk Island. Despite the island's status as a self-governing territory of Australia, some Islanders claim that it was actually granted independence at the time Queen Victoria granted permission to Pitcairn Islanders to re-settle on the island. These views have been repeatedly rejected by the Australian parliament's joint committee on territories, most recently in 2004, and were also rejected by the High Court of Australia in "Berwick Ltd v Gray".
States and territories of Australia
The term "geographic Australia" is used by the Australian government to describe the area covered by demographic statistics such as national population figures. This area comprises Christmas Island and the Cocos (Keeling) Islands in addition to the six states and three mainland territories; Norfolk Island is the only territory with a permanent population that is not part of geographic Australia.
Outline of Australia
The Commonwealth of Australia comprises the mainland of the Australian continent, plus the major island of Tasmania, and other nearby islands. The 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.
Easter
In Australia, because of its location in the southern hemisphere, Easter takes place in autumn. Hence, Australian Easter is associated with harvest time, rather than with the coming of spring as in the northern hemisphere. The religious aspect of Easter remains the same. Good Friday and Easter Monday are public holidays across all states and territories. "Easter Saturday" (the Saturday before Easter Sunday) is a public holiday in every state except Tasmania and Western Australia, while Easter Sunday itself is a public holiday only in New South Wales. Easter Tuesday is additionally a conditional public holiday in Tasmania, varying between award, and was also a public holiday in Victoria until 1994.
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
Some critics have suggested that Baum may have been inspired by Australia, a relatively new country at the time of the book's original publication. Australia is often colloquially spelled or referred to as "Oz". Furthermore, in "Ozma of Oz" (1907), Dorothy gets back to Oz as the result of a storm at sea while she and Uncle Henry are traveling by ship to Australia. Like Australia, Oz is an island continent somewhere to the west of California with inhabited regions bordering on a great desert. One might imagine that Baum intended Oz to be Australia, or perhaps a magical land in the center of the great Australian desert.
Australia's security relationship with the South Pacific
In 2003, the then Australian Prime Minister, John Howard, emphasised that intervention into Solomon Islands was in Australia's national interest because failed states in the region could become safe havens for transnational criminals and terrorists (Breen 2008: 50). Perceptions that the Solomon Islands was on the brink of becoming a failed state, and the threat that this could pose for Australia's national interests, provided the primary rationale for the Australian led intervention (Allen 2011: 4). This rationale was heavily influenced by broader shifts in the international strategic environment following the 9/11 attacks in 2001 and the subsequent US led war on terror (Allen 2011: 4). The decision to launch the RAMSI initiative in 2003 marked a sharp departure from the policy paradigm of detachment which had shaped Australia's approach to its Pacific Island neighbours in the post colonial period (Wainwright & White 2004: 10).
Coral Sea Islands
In 2004, the Gay and Lesbian Kingdom of the Coral Sea Islands was declared as a sovereign state as a symbolic political protest by a group of gay rights activists based in Australia in response to the Australian government's refusal to recognise same-sex marriages. The Kingdom was dissolved on 17 November 2017 following results of the Australian Marriage Law Postal Survey indicated a majority of Australians supported same-sex marriage. The Marriage Amendment (Definition and Religious Freedoms) Act 2017 received royal assent in December 2017.
Australia
Australia was inhabited by indigenous Australians for about 60,000 years before the first British settlement in the late 18th century. It is documented that Aborigines spoke languages that can be classified into about 250 groups. 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 initially 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 steadily in subsequent decades, and 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, forming the Commonwealth of Australia. Australia has since maintained a stable liberal democratic political system that functions as a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy, comprising six states and ten territories.
History of Australia
In 1769, Lieutenant James Cook in command of , travelled to Tahiti to observe and record the transit of Venus. Cook also carried secret Admiralty instructions to locate the supposed Southern Continent: "There is reason to imagine that a continent, or land of great extent, may be found to the southward of the track of former navigators." This continent was not found, a disappointment to Alexander Dalrymple and his fellow members of the Royal Society who had urged the Admiralty to undertake this mission. Cook decided to survey the east coast of New Holland, the only major part of that continent that had not been charted by Dutch navigators.
Geography of Asia
On the southeast of Asia are the Malay Peninsula (the limit of mainland Asia) and Indonesia ("Isles of India", the former East Indies), a vast nation among thousands of islands on the Sunda Shelf, large and small, inhabited and uninhabited. Australia nearby is a different continent. The Pacific islands northeast of Australia more remotely removed from Japan and Korea are Oceania rather than Asia. From Indonesia the border runs along the Indian Ocean to the Red Sea. Most of the islands in the Indian Ocean are Asian.
History of Indigenous Australians
In 1770, Lieutenant James Cook wrote that he had claimed the east coast of Australia for the United Kingdom and named it New South Wales, while on Possession Island off the west coast of Cape York Peninsula. However, it seems that no such claim was made when Cook was in Australia. Cook was not authorized to make such a claim and Joseph Banks, who was standing beside Cook, does not mention the event . Furthermore, Cook's purported declaration was made unilaterally and without any consultation with First Australians, in spite of his direct written orders from The Admiralty, which instructed him to conclude a treaty with the inhabitants (if any) and obtain their permission for the expropriation of land. British colonisation of Australia began in Sydney in 1788.
St Peter Island
St Peter Island (originally in Dutch: "Eyland St. Pierre") is an island in the Nuyts Archipelago on the west coast of Eyre Peninsula in South Australia near Ceduna. It is the second largest island in South Australia and about long. It was one of the first parts of South Australia to be discovered and named by Europeans, along with St Francis Island, mapped by François Thijssen in 't Gulden Zeepaert in 1627.
Adultery
Adultery is not a crime in Australia. Under federal law enacted in 1994, sexual conduct between consenting adults (18 years of age or older) is their private matter throughout Australia, irrespective of marital status. Australian states and territories had previously repealed their respective adultery criminal laws. Australia changed to no-fault divorce in 1975, abolishing adultery as a ground for divorce.
Australasia
Geopolitically, "Australasia" sometimes refers to Australia and New Zealand togetherin the absence of another word limited to those two countries; however, the two countries are sometimes referred to collectively as the Antipodes. Sometimes the term also encompasses the island of New Guinea (Papua New Guinea and the Indonesian part of the island). Many organisations whose names include the prefix "[Royal] Australasian Society of ..." limit their scope of operation to just Australia and New Zealand.
Australian archaeology
Currently, archaeological research places great importance on Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people's viewpoints on the land and history of Australia. Consideration is given to Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people's belief that archaeological sites are not just capsules of the past but a continuation from the past to the present. Therefore, at a research level significance is placed on the past but also on the importance of the present.
The first settlement of Australia is a popular research topic both in archaeology and in the public arena. There is consensus that no human or closely related species evolved independently in Australia. This is because there have been no species of primate found in Australia, either in the present or in the fossil record. It is therefore assumed that the first settlers of Australia came from outside. At present the fossil record suggests that the first settlers were "Homo sapiens", or fully modern humans.
Coral Sea Islands
The Coral Sea Islands Territory is an external territory of Australia which comprises a group of small and mostly uninhabited tropical islands and reefs in the Coral Sea, northeast of Queensland, Australia. The only inhabited island is Willis Island. The territory covers , most of which is ocean, extending east and south from the outer edge of the Great Barrier Reef and includes Heralds Beacon Island, Osprey Reef, the Willis Group and fifteen other reef/island groups. Cato Island is the highest point in the Territory.
List of islands of Australia
Australia has 8,222 islands within its maritime borders.
Torres Strait Islands
The proximity to Papua became an issue when it started moving towards independence from Australia, which it gained as part of Papua New Guinea in 1975. The Papua New Guinea government objected to the position of the border close to the New Guinean mainland and the subsequent complete Australian control over the waters of the strait. The Torres Strait Islanders opposed being separated from Australia and insisted on no change to the border. The Australian Federal government wished to cede the northern islands to appease Papua New Guinea, but were opposed by the Queensland government and Queensland Premier Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen. Eventually an agreement was struck whereby the islands and their inhabitants remained Australian, but the maritime boundary between Australia and Papua New Guinea runs through the centre of the strait. In practice the two countries co-operate closely in the management of the strait's resources.
Howland Island
Howland Island () is an uninhabited coral island located just north of the equator in the central Pacific Ocean, about southwest of Honolulu. The island lies almost halfway between Hawaii and Australia and is an unincorporated, unorganized territory of the United States. Geographically, together with Baker Island it forms part of the Phoenix Islands. For statistical purposes, Howland is grouped as one of the United States Minor Outlying Islands. It is located at . It covers , with of coastline. The island has an elongated plantain-shape on a north–south axis. There is no lagoon.
Rainbow flag (LGBT movement)
In June 2004 LGBT activists sailed to Australia's uninhabited Coral Sea Islands Territory and raised the rainbow flag, proclaiming the territory independent of Australia, calling it the Gay and Lesbian Kingdom of the Coral Sea Islands in protest to the Australian government's refusal to recognise same-sex marriages. The rainbow flag is the official flag of the kingdom.
In June 2015, The Museum of Modern Art acquired the rainbow flag symbol as part of its design collection.
Heard Island and McDonald Islands
The islands are a territory (Territory of Heard Island and McDonald Islands) of Australia administered from Hobart by the Australian Antarctic Division of the Australian Department of the Environment and Energy. The administration of the territory is established in the "Heard Island and McDonald Islands Act 1953", which places it under the laws of the Australian Capital Territory and the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court of the Australian Capital Territory. The islands are contained within a marine reserve and are primarily visited for research, meaning that there is no permanent human habitation.
Australia (continent)
Australia is the only first world country in the Australian-New Guinea continent, although the economy of Australia is by far the largest and most dominant economy in the region and one of the largest in the world. Australia's per-capita GDP is higher than that of the UK, Canada, Germany, and France in terms of purchasing power parity. The Australian Securities Exchange in Sydney is the largest stock exchange in Australia and in the South Pacific. In 2012, Australia was the 12th largest national economy by nominal GDP and the 19th-largest measured by PPP-adjusted GDP. Tourism in Australia is an important component of the Australian economy. In the financial year 2014/15, tourism represented 3.0% of Australia's GDP contributing A$47.5 billion to the national economy. In 2015, there were 7.4 million visitor arrivals.
Bathurst Island (Northern Territory)
Bathurst Island was depicted as Mission Island in the 2008 Baz Luhrmann film "Australia". In the film, the mixed-race boy Nullah is kept at the mission on the island for the two months preceding the Bombing of Darwin. The mission is bombed in the raid, and the children hide from Japanese troops until their rescue. The presence of Japanese troops on the island is entirely fictional, as no such landing by the Japanese was made during World War II. There was only a Japanese plane that crashed on the island where the pilot was caught and handed over to the correct authorities.
Ecological island
The concept of mainland islands was pioneered in New Zealand and arose mainly from the particular circumstances of that country's history. For millions of years New Zealand was part of the supercontinent Gondwanaland, which included Australia, Africa, and South America, and shared the same flora and fauna. About 70 million years ago New Zealand became separated, earlier than Australia, South America and Antarctica. About five million years later dinosaurs became globally extinct leaving the way open to mammals to dominate - except in New Zealand where there were no land mammals (only 3 species of bats and seals). In the absence of mammals, birds became dominant. Evolutionary processes resulted in a unique assemblage of plants and animals, and New Zealand became a land dominated by birds. Without competition from browsing mammals, birds evolved to occupy niches that mammals occupied elsewhere. Threatened by few predators, many birds had no need to fly and many species became flightless. Birds, reptiles, plants, insects, and bats, all evolved in the absence of mammals, and have little defence against alien species.
Sisters Islands
India
Australia
Gay and Lesbian Kingdom of the Coral Sea Islands
The Gay and Lesbian Kingdom of the Coral Sea Islands (also known as The Gay Kingdom of the Coral Sea) was a micronation established as a symbolic political protest by a group of gay rights activists based in Australia. Declared in 2004 in response to the Australian government's refusal to recognise same-sex marriages, it was founded on Australia's external overseas Territory of the Coral Sea Islands, a group of uninhabited islets east of the Great Barrier Reef. The Kingdom was dissolved on 17 November 2017 following the decision made by the Australian people to legalize gay marriage.
Island
There is a difference between islands and continents in terms of geology.
Continents would be the largest landmass of a particular continental plate; this holds true for Australia, which sits on its own continental lithosphere and tectonic plate (the Australian plate).
By contrast, islands are either extensions of the oceanic crust (e.g. volcanic islands), or belong to a continental plate containing a larger landmass; the latter is the case of Greenland, which sits on the North American plate.
1999 Australian republic referendum
The highest "Yes" votes for the republic came from inner metropolitan areas. Of Australia's 148 divisions, 42 voted yes, with Melbourne (70.92%), Sydney (67.85%), Melbourne Ports (65.90%), Grayndler (64.77%) and Fraser (64.46%) registering the highest "Yes" votes at division level. Sydney and Melbourne voted in favour of the proposition for Australia to become a republic, in contrast to No votes in Adelaide, Brisbane, Gold Coast and Perth. Wealthier areas also tended to support the proposal for Australia to become a republic — of the top 10% divisions on the 2001 SEIFA Advantage/Disadvantage index, only two out of 15 (Mitchell (46.89%) and Mackellar (49.43%)) voted "no". Votes in opposition to the proposal predominantly came from rural and remote divisions, as well as many outer suburban areas.
Australians
Indigenous Australians are descendants of the original inhabitants of the Australian continent. Their ancestors are believed to have migrated from Africa to Asia around 70,000 years ago and arrived in Australia around 50,000 years ago. The Torres Strait Islanders are a distinct people of Melanesian ancestry, indigenous to the Torres Strait Islands, which are at the northernmost tip of Queensland near Papua New Guinea, and some nearby settlements on the mainland. The term "Aboriginal" is traditionally applied to only the indigenous inhabitants of mainland Australia and Tasmania, along with some of the adjacent islands. "Indigenous Australians" is an inclusive term used when referring to both Aboriginal and Torres Strait islanders, i.e.: the "first peoples".
Australasia
Physiographically, Australasia includes New Zealand, Australia (including Tasmania), and Melanesia: Papua New Guinea and neighbouring islands north and east of Australia in the Pacific Ocean. The designation is sometimes applied to all the lands and islands of the Pacific Ocean lying between the equator and latitude 47° south. Papua New Guinea also includes approximately 600 offshore islands.
States and territories of Australia
Cocos (Keeling) Islands voted for integration in 1984. Together with Christmas Island, Commonwealth laws apply automatically to the territory unless expressly stated otherwise and residents of both external territories are associated with Northern Territory for federal elections. They are, thus, constitutionally part of Australia.
History of Australia
In 1798–99 George Bass and Matthew Flinders set out from Sydney in a sloop and circumnavigated Tasmania, thus proving it to be an island. In 1801–02 Matthew Flinders in "HMS Investigator" led the first circumnavigation of Australia. Aboard ship was the Aboriginal explorer Bungaree, of the Sydney district, who became the first person born on the Australian continent to circumnavigate the Australian continent. Previously, the famous Bennelong and a companion had become the first people born in the area of New South Wales to sail for Europe, when, in 1792 they accompanied Governor Phillip to England and were presented to King George III.
Australia (continent)
Papua New Guinea, a country within the continent, is one of the most culturally and linguistically diverse countries in the world. It is also one of the most rural, as only 18 
percent of its people live in urban centres. West Papua, a province of Indonesia, is home to an estimated 44 uncontacted tribal groups. Australia, the largest landmass in the continent, is highly urbanised, and has the world's 13th-largest economy with the second-highest human development index globally. Australia also has the world's 9th largest immigrant population. The first settlers of Australia, New Guinea, and the large islands just to the east arrived between 50,000 and 30,000 years ago.
Western Australia Day
Western Australia Day (formerly known as Foundation Day) is a public holiday in Western Australia, celebrated on the first Monday in June each year to commemorate the founding of the Swan River Colony in 1829. Because of the celebration of Western Australia Day, WA does not celebrate the Queen's Birthday Holiday in June, as do the other Australian states; it is held in September or October instead.
Geography of Australia
The Australian mainland has a total coastline length of with an additional of island coastlines. There are 758 estuaries around the country with most located in the tropical and sub-tropical zones. Australia claims an extensive Exclusive Economic Zone of 8,148,250 square kilometres (3,146,057 sq. mi). This exclusive economic zone does not include the Australian Antarctic Territory (an additional 5,896,500 square kilometres).
History of Australia
Romantic descriptions of the beauty, mild climate, and fertile soil of Norfolk Island in the South Pacific led the British government to establish a subsidiary settlement of the New South Wales colony there in 1788. It was hoped that the giant Norfolk Island pine trees and flax plants growing wild on the island might provide the basis for a local industry which, particularly in the case of flax, would provide an alternative source of supply to Russia for an article which was essential for making cordage and sails for the ships of the British navy. However, the island had no safe harbour, which led the colony to be abandoned and the settlers evacuated to Tasmania in 1807. The island was subsequently re-settled as a penal settlement in 1824.
Australia (continent)
With a total land area of , the Australian continent is the smallest, and second-lowest human inhabited (after Antarctica) continent on Earth. The continental shelf connecting the islands, half of which is less than deep, covers some , including the Sahul Shelf and Bass Strait.
As the country of Australia is mostly on a single landmass, and comprises most of the continent, it is sometimes informally referred to as an island continent, surrounded by oceans.
Mainland
The term is relative- in Tasmania, continental Australia is the mainland, while to residents of Flinders Island, the main island of Tasmania is also "the mainland".
Australian archaeology
The degree to which Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people on the Australian continent practised agriculture has long been debated by archaeologists. Earlier it was believed that Australian Aboriginal people were ignorant of the principles of agriculture, but this has since been disproven. For instance, Australian Aboriginal women in traditional societies often transplanted immature "bush tucker" plants found growing in unfavourable locations to more favourable spots. There were also a number of plants (particularly seeds and roots) that could have lent themselves to cultivation, and were used in making such foods as damper. Charles Sturt in his 1844 expedition to northwest New South Wales and central Australia reports seeing large haystacks built by Aboriginal people of seed crops. This was located east of Depot Glen Milparinka about 600 km from the Murray River. Firestick farming has also always been a technique used by Aboriginal people to open the canopy of closed canopy forests, introducing sunlight to the ground, and prompting germination of a number of foodstuffs known to attract kangaroo and other marsupials. This would encourage a more intensive land use than otherwise. But the main reason for the lack of agriculture in Australia is the extreme variability of the climate. Australia is the only continent on Earth, which, as a result of the El Nino Southern Oscillation, experiences greater variability between years than it does between the seasons. Such climatic variability makes farming very difficult, especially for incipient farmers who cannot be supported from outside their community. Australian Aboriginal people found that maintaining stable populations below the effective carrying capacity of the environment would enable an adequate supply of food, even in drought years, so maintaining a stable culture. This made hunting and gathering a more sustainable activity on the Australian continent than neolithic farming. Evidence of cultivation at Kuk in Papua New Guinea, from about 10–12,000 years BP (at a time when that island was joined to Australia, suggests crop raising was possible in the Sahul supercontinent when conditions were favourable.
Australia
The Commonwealth Parliament also directly administers the following external territories: Ashmore and Cartier Islands; Australian Antarctic Territory; Christmas Island; Cocos (Keeling) Islands; Coral Sea Islands; Heard Island and McDonald Islands; and Jervis Bay Territory, a naval base and sea port for the national capital in land that was formerly part of New South Wales. The external territory of Norfolk Island previously exercised considerable autonomy under the "Norfolk Island Act 1979" through its own legislative assembly and an Administrator to represent the Queen. In 2015, the Commonwealth Parliament abolished self-government, integrating Norfolk Island into the Australian tax and welfare systems and replacing its legislative assembly with a council. Macquarie Island is administered by Tasmania, and Lord Howe Island by New South Wales.
Administrator (Australia)
As well as the internal and largely self-governing territories of the Northern Territory and the Australian Capital Territory, Australia also possesses (or lays claim to—since Australia's Antarctic claims are not universally recognised) seven external territories, each of which falls within the sphere of influence of the Commonwealth and is administered by the Commonwealth Government. Three of these, Norfolk Island (which enjoys a large degree of autonomy), the Territory of Cocos (Keeling) Islands and the Territory of Christmas Island have permanent populations and also have an Administrator appointed by the Governor-General-in-Council to administer the territory on their behalf. The remaining four external territories, the Australian Antarctic Territory, the Coral Sea Islands Territory, the Territory of Ashmore Reef and Cartier Island, and the Territory of Heard and McDonald Islands have no permanent population and do not have an Administrator as such but are administered directly by the Commonwealth Government, currently under the auspices of the Attorney-General's Department.
Thursday Island
The Melanesian background of the Thursday Islanders became an issue in the 1970s, when Papua New Guinea sought to include some of the Torres Strait Islands within its borders. The Torres Strait Islanders insisted that they were Australians, however, and after considerable diplomatic discussion and political disputation between the Queensland and the Federal Governments, all of the Torres Strait islands, including Thursday Island, remained part of Australia.
Aspatria Island
Aspatria Island is an island in Australia. It is located in the state of Queensland, in the eastern part of the country, 1600 km north of the capital, Canberra.
Flag Day (Australia)
Australian National Flag Day is not a public holiday.
Pacific Islands
Many islands located within the boundaries of the Pacific Ocean are not considered part of Oceania. These islands include the Galápagos Islands of Ecuador; the Aleutian Islands of Alaska, United States; Vancouver Island in Canada; the Russian islands of Sakhalin and Kuril Islands; the island nation of Taiwan and other islands of the Republic of China; the Philippines; islands in the South China Sea, which includes the disputed South China Sea Islands; most of the islands of Indonesia; and the island nation of Japan, which comprises the Japanese Archipelago.
Australia (continent)
The continent of Australia, sometimes known in technical contexts by the names Sahul, Australinea or Meganesia to distinguish it from the country of Australia, consists of the land masses which sit on Australia's continental plate. This includes mainland Australia, Tasmania, and the island of New Guinea (comprising Papua New Guinea and two Indonesian provinces). Situated in the geographical region of Oceania, it is the smallest of the seven traditional continents in the English conception.
Australasia
Australasia, a region of Oceania, comprises Australia, New Zealand, neighbouring islands in the Pacific Ocean and, sometimes, the island of New Guinea (which is usually considered to be part of Melanesia). Charles de Brosses coined the term (as French "Australasie") in "Histoire des navigations aux terres australes" (1756). He derived it from the Latin for "south of Asia" and differentiated the area from Polynesia (to the east) and the southeast Pacific (Magellanica). The bulk of Australasia sits on the Indo-Australian Plate, together with India.
Eastern states of Australia
The eastern states of Australia are the states adjoining the east coast of Australia. These are the mainland states of Victoria, Queensland, and New South Wales; the Australian Capital Territory and Jervis Bay Territory, while not states, are also included. The term usually includes the island state of Tasmania. On some occasions, the state of South Australia is included in this grouping.
Kangaroo Island
Kangaroo Island separated from mainland Australia around 10,000 years ago, due to rising sea level after the last glacial period. Known as Karta (""Island of the Dead"") by the mainland Aboriginal tribes, the existence of stone tools and shell middens show that Aboriginal people once lived on Kangaroo Island. It is thought that they occupied it as long ago as 16,000 years before the present, and may have only disappeared from the island as recently as 2000 years ago.
Federation of Australia
The Federation of Australia was the process by which the six separate British self-governing colonies of Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia, and Western Australia agreed to unite and form the Commonwealth of Australia, establishing a system of federalism in Australia. Fiji and New Zealand were originally part of this process, but they decided not to join the federation. Following federation, the six colonies that united to form the Commonwealth of Australia as states kept the systems of government (and the bicameral legislatures) that they had developed as separate colonies, but they also agreed to have a federal government that was responsible for matters concerning the whole nation. When the Constitution of Australia came into force, on 1 January 1901, the colonies collectively became states of the Commonwealth of Australia.
Australia
The Australian dollar is the currency for the nation, including Christmas Island, Cocos (Keeling) Islands, and Norfolk Island, as well as the independent Pacific Island states of Kiribati, Nauru, and Tuvalu. With the 2006 merger of the Australian Stock Exchange and the Sydney Futures Exchange, the Australian Securities Exchange became the ninth largest in the world.
List of continent name etymologies
The word "Australia" means "Southern Land" in New Latin, adapted from the legendary pseudo-geographical "Terra Australis Incognita" ("Unknown Southern Land") dating back to the Roman era. First appearing as a corruption of the Spanish name for an island in Vanuatu in 1625, "Australia" was slowly popularized following the advocacy of the British explorer Matthew Flinders in his 1814 description of his circumnavigation of the island. Lachlan Macquarie, a Governor of New South Wales, used the word in his dispatches to England and recommended it be formally adopted by the Colonial Office in 1817. The Admiralty agreed seven years later and the continent became officially known as Australia in 1824.
Birds of Australia
Australia and its offshore islands and territories have 898 recorded bird species as of 2014. Of the recorded birds, 165 are considered vagrant or accidental visitors, of the remainder over 45% are classified as Australian endemics: found nowhere else on earth. It has been suggested that up to 10% of Australian bird species may go extinct by the year 2100 as a result of climate change.
Continent
Europeans discovered Australia in 1606, but for some time it was taken as part of Asia. By the late 18th century, some geographers considered it a continent in its own right, making it the sixth (or fifth for those still taking America as a single continent). In 1813, Samuel Butler wrote of Australia as "New Holland, an immense island, which some geographers dignify with the appellation of another continent" and the "Oxford English Dictionary" was just as equivocal some decades later.