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Australia is the lowest, flattest, and oldest continental landmass on Earth [8] and it has had a relatively stable geological history. Geological forces such as the tectonic uplift of mountain ranges and clashes between tectonic plates occurred mainly in Australia's early prehistory, when it was still a part of Gondwana .
This outline of Australia is an overview of and topical guide to various aspects of the country of Australia: Australia refers to both the continent of Australia and to the Commonwealth of Australia , the sovereign country .
Despite the encyclopedia claiming to revolve around the nation of Australia as a continent, it also includes New Zealand and the Australian territories. The majority of the articles featured in the second edition of the Australian Encyclopedia are dedicated to history, geography and natural science.
Basic geological regions of Australia, by age. The geology of Australia includes virtually all known rock types, spanning a geological time period of over 3.8 billion years, including some of the oldest rocks on earth. Australia is a continent situated on the Indo-Australian plate.
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, [17] is a country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and numerous smaller islands. [18] 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 .
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The League of Nations mandated northeast New Guinea to Australia after World War I, as well as Nauru, which was placed under joint Australian-British-New Zealand jurisdiction. These mandates (and, later, United Nations trust territories) became the independent nations of Nauru and Papua New Guinea in the mid-20th century.
The human history of Australia, however, commences with the arrival of the first ancestors of Aboriginal Australians by sea from Maritime Southeast Asia between 50,000 and 65,000 years ago, and continues to the present day multicultural democracy. Aboriginal Australians settled throughout continental Australia and many nearby islands.