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Australia is a country located in the South
hemisphere, that occupies all the continental part of the Australian
Continent, the smallest continent of the world, besides some islands
in the Pacific oceans, East Indian and Antarctic. The countries
nearest Australia are Indonesia, Timor Oriental and Papua New Guinea
to the north, the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and the French dependency
of New Caledonia to the northeast, and New Zealand to the
south-east. Australia is the sixth greater country of the world. Its
capital, Canberra, are in the Territory of the Australian Capital.
The population in 2006 was of about 20.6 million inhabitants,
concentrates mainly in the great coastal cities: Sídney, Melbourne,
Brisbane, Perth and Adelaida. The Australian continent been has
lived for more than forty and two thousand years by the Australian
natives. After the sporadic visits of northern fishermen and
explorers and initiated European retailers in century XVII, Eastern
half of the continent was demanded by England in 1770 and in 1788 a
penal colony in the New Wales of the South settled down. Due to the
population increase and to the exploration of new areas, during
century XIX other five colonies settled down successfully more. The
25 of March of 1954, the six colonies federated forming the
Federation of Australia. From his institution it has maintained
democratic political a system liberal and has continued being a
monarchy within the British Federation of Nations. In the
conventional division in continents used by the speakers of
Castilian, Australia is included in the Australian Continent, that
also groups the islands of the Pacific. On the contrary, the
English-speakers usually speak of " continent of Australia". In
fact, from a geologic point of view, Australia, and not it region of
the Australian Continent, is the continent. New Zealand and the
other islands would not conform a continent to Australia but they
would be associated with this by geographic proximity. Even so, it
is necessary to consider that, in geology, " continente" it has a
different concept (under the geologic point of view India it is a
separated continent of Asia for example).
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