AUSTRALIA

General Information

The largest city of Australia, the capital city of which is Canberra, is Sydney. Being an island country, Australia’s coastline is 25,760 kilometers in length. Australia sits on a land that is 3700 kilometers long from north to south and 4000 kilometers wide from west to east. Traces of human life in the country are nearly 120 thousand years old. The local people of the continent, the Aborigines, are believed to have lived in Australia for 50-60 thousand years. Even though the country seems to be an isolated land in a far corner of the world, Chinese and Indian merchants and fishermen are known to have come to the shores of Australia. Marco Polo speaks of a rich land and culture to the south of Java Island upon his return from China in 1292. The first sailor to reach the shores of Australia, which means “unknown land of the south”, in 1606 is Pedro Fernandes de Queiros from Spain. He declared that the island belonged to the Kingdom of Spain. After that, countries such as the Netherlands, France and the United Kingdom formed colonies in various parts of the continent. The English, who had become stronger in the continent, started to transport convicts from its prisons to Australia starting from mid-nineteenth century. Following that, the population of Aborigines started to decline, reaching the point of extinction today. The constitutional ties between the United Kingdom and Australia that survived to a recent time period, were severed in 1986 with the Australia Act.    

Nevertheless, the contemporary Australian culture is English-centric. There is a rich cultural mosaic in the country due to the fact that one person out of five in Australia, is of foreign origin. The two central cities of the country, Melbourne and Sydney, are 900 kilometers apart. Melbourne is the center of arts in Australia. In addition to tourism, service sectors such as finance and education hold an important place in the country’s economy. Also agriculture and textile are important industries. 

You can see the two icons of Australia, the kangaroo and koala, in various national parks in the country. There are facilities and locations for every water sport and underwater activity in Australia. The iconic 20th century architectural example, the Sydney Opera Building which was included in the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites in 2007, and Harbour Bridge –another icon of Australia built in 1932- which was recognized by the Guinness World Records as the longest and largest bridge of the world are places that you must see. Especially Sydney hosts various events that are organized in Australia. The biggest cultural event of the country, the Sydney Festival, the rock festival called Big Day Out, and Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race which starts from Sydney and ends in Tasmania are examples. Melbourne is the second largest city in the country. Melbourne, an art and shopping center, is the most European city in Australia due to its Victorian architecture. Downtown, the shopping mall of the city called Prahan, the beautiful Grampians National Park, and Philip Island are places that must visit in and around Melbourne.

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