Australia (Sum up)

AUSTRALIA

Australia is located in the southern hemisphere between the Pacific and the Indian Oceans. Its official name is the Commonwealth of Australia, its capital city is Canberra, its national anthem is the Advance Austrlia Fair and its flag the Southern Cross.

Australia is composed of 6 states : New South Wales, Queensland, Tasmania, Western Australia, Victoria, and Southern Australia; and 2 territories called Australia Capital Territory and North Territory (see http://www.atlasgeo.net/fotw/flags/au%28.html ).

Australia is fourteen times as big as France (7 682 300 km²) and three times less populated. Indeed, 97 % of the space is uninhabited.

°°° Political point of view °°°

Australia, as a member of Commonwealth, is a federal parliamentary democraty. Its constitution had been drafted in 1901 and comes from both British parliamentary traditions and the American system.
Executive power is done by a general governor who represents the British authority; and the
legislative one is done by the Senate and a Chamber of Representatives.
(Senate = 76 members : 12 per state and 2 per territories)
Each state has its own parliament with the two chambers except Queensland (only one) and the British sovereign is represented in each state by a state governor.

°°°Demography°°°

Actually, aboriginals only represents 1 % of the population. In fact, Australia is nowadays a melting pot:

- three fourth of people are from Irish or British roots ;
- 18 % have other European ancestors (mainly from Italy and former U.S.S.R.) ;
- 7 % of people with Asian roots ;

It’s absolutely absurd because European people colonised Australia in 1788 whereas aboriginals lived there for 40 000 to 60 000 years….

I might be adding some informations on this later on...

See Ya !!!