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Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and numerous smaller islands. [N 5] It has a total area of 7,688,287 km 2 (2,968,464 sq mi), making it the sixth-largest country in the world and the largest in Oceania.
The Province of South Australia was established in 1836 as a privately financed settlement based on the theory of "systematic colonisation" developed by Edward Gibbon Wakefield. Convict labour was banned in the hope of making the colony more attractive to "respectable" families and promote an even balance between male and female settlers.
The history of Australia from 1901 to 1945 begins with the federation of the six colonies to create the Commonwealth of Australia. The young nation joined Britain in the First World War, suffered through the Great Depression in Australia as part of the global Great Depression and again joined Britain in the Second World War against Nazi Germany in 1939.
The Colony of New South Wales was created as a penal colony by the Kingdom of Great Britain in Australia east of 135° east. [1] Word of the establishment was proclaimed in Australia by Governor Arthur Phillip on 7 February 1788. [2]
For the purposes of Australian (and joint Australia-New Zealand) intergovernmental bodies, the Northern Territory and the Australian Capital Territory are treated as if they were states. Each state has a governor, appointed by the monarch (currently King Charles III), which by convention he does on the advice of the state premier. [49]
The prehistory of Australia is the period between the first human habitation of the Australian continent and the colonisation of Australia in 1788, which marks the start of consistent written documentation of Australia. This period has been variously estimated, with most evidence suggesting that it goes back between 50,000 and 65,000 years.
The Constitutional history of Australia is the history of Australia's foundational legal principles. Australia's legal origins as a nation state began in the colonial era, with the reception of English law and the lack of any regard to existing Indigenous legal structures.
The history of Australia from 1788 to 1850 covers the early British colonial period of Australia's history. This started with the arrival in 1788 of the First Fleet of British ships at Port Jackson on the lands of the Eora, and the establishment of the penal colony of New South Wales as part of the British Empire.