The Commonwealth of Australia, commonly known as Australia, is a parliamentary constitutional monarchy and federal country located in the central northern part of the Southern Hemisphere and the eastern part of the Eastern Hemisphere. The whole country belongs to Oceania (not a separate continent), which is the largest in terms of area, the second largest in the southern hemisphere, and the sixth largest in terms of global area. The Australian territory includes several overseas islands including the entire Australian continent, Tasmania Island, and Christmas Island, with a total land area of approximately 7692300 square kilometers, which is similar in size to the mainland of the United States. According to the 2019 census data, the national population is approximately 25.22 million, ranking 54th in the world. The country has no land neighbors, and all neighboring countries face it across the sea. In the southeast, there is the Kingdom of New Zealand; In the northeast, there are Pacific island countries such as Papua New Guinea and Vanuatu, Fiji, etc; The north and northwest are Southeast Asian countries such as Indonesia and East Timor. The capital of Australia is Canberra, with the largest cities being Sydney (metropolitan area) [19] and Melbourne (urban area) [20] [21] [22]. Other major cities include Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth, Darwin, etc. The mainland is divided into six states and two territories. In terms of economic and social development, it belongs to both developed and capitalist countries.
The continent on which Australia is located had human habitation in ancient times, but it was not discovered until the Age of Discovery in the 17th century that it was connected with external human society. It began to become a place for British colonization and prisoner exile in the late 18th century, and later became a hot topic for immigrants and investment due to the discovery of precious minerals. Thanks to its relatively isolated geographical location, Australia has hardly been affected by international wars since its colonization, and there have been few internal wars and conflicts. Only the northern city of Darwin was affected by the Second World War. However, during the two World Wars and the Korean War, Australian soldiers went to major battlefields such as Europe and the Korean Peninsula to support military operations by countries and organizations such as the United Kingdom and the United Nations. In the benign development environment composed of its own resource endowment, the mature modern industrial and agricultural civilization implanted in Europe, and the good commercial regulations brought by the UK, Australia has gradually been built and developed into a developed country with a level of freedom and democracy, socio-economic development, and national living standards that are among the top in the world since the mid to late 19th century. However, the indigenous people on the Australian continent have suffered greatly in some aspects as a result (including incidents such as the “stolen generation”). The Australian federal government has since apologized for this and gradually worked to improve and protect the living and development conditions and various rights of the indigenous people. The situation has greatly improved to this day. The independence movement and process in Australia began in 1901, with the original six British colonies (now known as states) forming the Commonwealth of Australia. From then on, Australia gradually separated from Britain and independently exercised its sovereignty as a country, until it officially became an independent country through legislation in 1986. Constitutional monarchy
