- Australia -

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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).