Places and Landscape
Oceania
Reviewer
Australia
 The world Australia is derived from the
Latin “australis”, means southern.
 Specifically form the hypothetical Terra
Australis postulated in pre-modern
geography.
 After British colonization, the name
New Holland was retained for several
decades and the south polar continent
continued to be called Terra
Australis, sometimes shortened to
Australia.
 On January 26, 1788, Captain Arthur
Phillip guides a fleet of 11 British ships
carrying convicts to the colony of New
South Wales, effectively founding
Australia.
 It became a nation on 1 January 1901
when 6 British colonies—New South
Wales, Victoria, Queensland, South
Australia, Western Australia and
Tasmania—united to form the
Commonwealth of Australia. This
process is known as federation.
 It is the smallest continent and largest
country on Earth.
 Australia’s capital is Canberra,
located in the southeast between the
larger and more important economic
and cultural centers of Sydney and
Melbourne.
 It has been called “the Oldest
Continent,” “the Last of Lands,” and
“the Last Frontier.”
 Australia is the last of lands only in the
sense that it was the last continent,
apart from Antarctica, to be explored
by Europeans.
 At least 60,000 years before European
explorers sailed into the South Pacific,
the first Aboriginal explorers had
arrived from Asia, and by 20,000 years
ago they had spread throughout the
mainland and its chief island outlier,
Tasmania.
 When Captain Arthur Phillip of the
British Royal Navy landed with the
First Fleet at Botany Bay in 1788,
there may have been between
250,000 and 500,000 Aboriginals,
though some estimates are much
higher.
Australia’s Location
 Australia lies 25.2744° S, 133.7751° E
while Oceania 22.7359° S, 140.0188°
E.
 Australia is geographically positioned
both in the Southern and Eastern
hemispheres of the Earth.
 It is completely surrounded by the
Indian and Pacific Oceans and a
series of bays, gulfs, seas and straits
and is situated to the south of Maritime
Southeast Asia and to the north of the
Antarctic.
o The Australian mainland
extends from west to east for
nearly 2,500 miles (4,000 km)
and from Cape York Peninsula
in the northeast to Wilsons
Promontory in the southeast for
nearly 2,000 miles (3,200 km).
o To the south, Australian
jurisdiction extends a further
310 miles (500 km) to the
southern extremity of the island
of Tasmania, and in the north,
it extends to the southern
shores of Papua New Guinea.
 Australia is separated from Indonesia
to the northwest by the Timor and
Arafura seas, from Papua New Guinea
to the northeast by the Coral Sea and
the Torres Strait, from the Coral Sea
Islands Territory by the Great Barrier
Reef, from New Zealand to the
southeast by the Tasman Sea, and
from Antarctica in the far south by the
Indian Ocean.
Political Subdivision of Australia
 Australia is composed of six states:
o New South Wales
o Queensland
o South Australia
o Tasmania
o Victoria
o Western Australia
 There are also three internal territories:
o Australian Capital Territory
o Jervis Bay Territory
o Northern Territory
 Also, seven external territories:
o Ashmore and Cartier Island
 o The Australian Antarctic territory
o Christmas Island
o Cocos Island
o Coral Sea Island
o Heard Island
o McDonald Island
o Norfolk Island
 In total, there are ten territories in
Australia, with internal territories
being on the Australian mainland, and
external territories being sovereign
territories offshore.
 Every state and internal territory,
excluding the Jervis Bay Territory,
has its own executive government,
legislative branch, and judicial system.
Topography
 Australia is both the flattest
continent and, except for Antarctica,
the driest.
 Seen from the air, its vast plains,
sometimes the color of dried blood,
more often tawny like a lion’s skin,
may seem to be one huge desert.
 One can fly the roughly 2,000 miles
(3,200 km) to Sydney from Darwin in
the north or to Sydney from Perth in
the west without seeing a town or
anything but the most scattered and
minute signs of human habitation for
vast stretches.
 A good deal of the central depression
and western plateau is indeed desert.
Yet appearances can be deceptive.
 The red and black soil plains of
Queensland and New South Wales
have long supported the world’s
greatest wool industry, and some of
the most arid and forbidding areas of
Australia conceal great mineral
wealth.
 The coastal rim is, almost everywhere,
exempted from the prevailing flatness
and aridity. In particular the east coast,
where European settlement began and
where the majority of Australians now
live, is topographically quite diverse
and is comparatively well watered and
fertile.
 Inland from the coast runs a chain of
highlands, known as the Great
Dividing Range, from Cape York in
northern Queensland to the southern
seaboard of Tasmania.
 From the coast that range, which may
be anything from 20 miles to 200 miles
(30 to 300 km) distant, often appears
as a bold range of mountains, though
few of its peaks exceed 5,000 feet
(1,500 meters).
 In fact, it is more like the escarpment
of a giant plateau, formed of gently
rolling hills, which slopes imperceptibly
down to the western plains.
 There are similar, though smaller,
stretches of hilly, well-watered land all
around the rim of the continent except
on the south coast where the Null
arbor Plain stretches to the sea, but
everywhere precipitation diminishes
rapidly as one penetrates farther from
the coast.
Three Sisters, Blue Mountains, New South
Wales, Australia
 There are wide variations in
landforms and climate.
 The thickly wooded ranges of the
Great Divide have little in common
with the treeless, sun-baked plains of
the Inland.
 There is a vast difference between
the red rocks and monumental hills
of central Australia and the tropical
 rainforests and sugar plantations of
northern Queensland.
 The Australian Heritage
Commission Act of 1975 established
a federal agency to develop interest in
a National Estate of listed places.
o Such places would be selected
mainly on the basis of
aesthetic, historical,
scientific, or social
significance.
o The process was not intended
to guarantee any area or site
against development, but the
growing register was,
nevertheless, made to serve
that purpose on occasion.
 The UNESCO list of World Heritage
sites carries more political and legal
weight, and areas so classified have
been protected by the federal
governments in the face of furious
opposition from their state partners.
 Some 20 Australian landmarks,
representing every state and territory,
have been added to the list, including
o the Great Barrier Reef,
o the Blue Mountains area,
Kakadu National Park,
o Shark Bay, Uluru–Kata Tjuta
National Park (which contains
the great red mass of
Uluru/Ayers Rock,
o a sacred site of Aboriginal
peoples),
o rainforest reserves in central-
eastern Australia,
o the Tasmanian Wilderness, and
fossil mammal sites at
Riversleigh and Naracoorte.
 Territorial disputes have arisen over
proposals for the Great Barrier Reef
and natural rainforest enclaves in
Queensland and Tasmania.
Overall Characteristics
 Australia is a land of vast plains. That
only 6 percent of the island continent is
above 2,000 feet (600 meters) in
elevation.
 Its highest peak is the Mount
Kosciuszko which only rises 1,310
feet (2,228 meters).
 This situation stems in part from the
long periods of geologic time during
which Australia has been subject to
weathering and erosion and in part
from Australia’s position at the edge of
a zone of significant and geologically
recent earth movement.
Australia’s Physiographic Region
Western Plateau
 Patterns of faulting and folding in
large measure control the distribution
and attitude of rocks and thus play a
significant part in determining the
shape of the land surface.
 But the nature and intensity of the
processes at work at and near the land
surface also give rise to characteristic
assemblages of forms.
 Australia is an arid continent;
o fully one-third of its area is
occupied by desert,
o another third is steppe or
semidesert,
o and only in the north, east,
southeast, and southwest is
precipitation adequate to
support vegetation that
significantly protects the land
surface from weathering.
The Pinnacles, Western Australia
 Permanently flowing rivers are found
only in the eastern and southwestern
regions and in Tasmania.
 The major exception is the Murray
River, a stream that rises in the Mount
Kosciuszko area in the Eastern
Uplands and is fed by melting snows.
 As a result, it acquires a volume
sufficient to survive the passage
across the arid and semiarid plains
that bear its name and to reach the
Southern Ocean southeast
Adelaide.
o (In Australia, the southern
portions of the Pacific and
Indian oceans surrounding
Antarctica are called the
Southern Ocean; that body of
water is also known as the
Antarctic Ocean.)
 All other rivers in Australia are
seasonal or intermittent in their flow,
and those of the arid interior are
episodic.
 Many areas—notably the Null arbor
Plain, which is underlain by limestone,
and the sand ridge deserts—are
without surface drainage, but there are
underground streams.
 A map of Australia can be
misleading; though many “lakes” are
depicted in the interior, the fact is that
many of them are now salt lakes that
contain no water for years on end.
The Interior Lowlands
 The interior lowlands are dominated by
three major basins:
o Carpentaria Basin
o Eyre Basin
o Murray Basin
 The Carpentaria Basin and Eyre
Basins are separated by such minute
residual relief elements as Mount
Brown and Mount Fort Bowen in
Northwestern Queensland.
 The Wilcannia threshold divides the
Eyre and Murray basins,
o and the latter is separated from
the Otway Basin and the
Southern Ocean by the
Pathway Ridge.
 The Eyre and Murray basins are
entirely terrestrial, but the Carpentaria
is partly inundated by the sea.
 The Carpentaria plains, occupying the
basin of the same name, form a
narrow lowland corridor between the
Isa Highlands and the Endsleigh
uplands (part of the Eastern Uplands).
 They are drained by the Leichhardt,
of
Flinders, and Gilbert rivers and in
the south take the form of broadly
rolling plains underlain by heavy gray
lime-enriched (pedocalic) soils.
 In the north, however, there are
extensive flat depositional plains,
some of them related to swamps from
the Pleistocene Epoch (i.e., about
2,600,000 to 11,700 years ago), some
associated with the present floodplains
of the braided river systems. Standing
above the plains, for example around
Normanton, are considerable plateau
and mesa remnants of the Paleogene
and Neogene laterite surface.
 Similar rolling plains with laterite
residuals standing above them occur
in the Eyre Basin, particularly around
the headwaters of the Diamantina,
near Kynuna.
 But to the south, toward the more arid
interior, the plains become flatter and
are protected by a veneer of stones—
the well-known stony desert with its
mantle of gibber (hammada, serir, and
desert armour).
 In many parts of southwestern
Queensland, northeastern South
Australia, and northwestern New
South Wales, there are plateau and
related relief remnants similar to those
found in other parts of the lowlands,
although those are capped and
protected not by laterite but by silcrete,
another hard rock residue.
 That region is folded in places, and the
subsequent dissection by erosive
forces has brought about disintegration
 of the silcrete, which is about 20
million years old and which formerly
extended over vast areas of central
Australia.
 That process provided much stony
debris for the gibber plains so
characteristic of much of central
Australia and particularly of the Lake
Eyre depression.
Eastern Upland
 The Eastern Uplands are a complex
series of:
o high ridges,
o high plains,
o plateaus,
o basins
 that extend from Cape York Peninsula
in the north to Bass Strait in the south,
with a southerly extension into
Tasmania and one extending
westward into western Victoria.
 The uplands are the eroded remnants
of an ancient mountain range recently
rejuvenated by block faulting.
 They occupy the site of the Tasman
downward belt, the sediments of which
were folded and faulted in late
Paleozoic times.
 Granite batholiths were intruded into
that region, and during the Cenozoic
Era (the past 66 million years) lavas
appeared extensively in areas as far
apart as northern Queensland and
Tasmania.
 Characteristic features associated with
that process were lava fields, with
stony rises, soil-filled depressions, and
lava caves.
 Extinct cones and craters survive in
southeastern Queensland, in the
Monaro district of New South Wales,
and in western Victoria.
 In considerable measure the landforms
reflect the various geologic events.
o Uplifted structural blocks, many
of them trending north to south,
are common in some areas,
while straight river courses
reflect the control exercised by
fault zones.
 Ridge and valley forms, as found in the
Grampians of Victoria, reflect the
differential erosion of broken and
folded rock strata.
 Massive domes or clusters of boulders
are common on the exposed granitic
batholiths.
 The lava plains and plateaus display
stony rises, shallow alluvial
depressions, and volcanic vents and
plugs of various types and ages.
 Other features reflect the erosional
history of the region.
 Wide areas of the upland had been
reduced to a uniform low relief by the
time of the later Mesozoic Era (about
100 million years ago) and many
remnants of the ancient surface,
exhumed by erosive action from
beneath a later Cretaceous cover (i.e.,
up to about 65 million years ago),
survive in the landscape, notably in
northern Queensland.
 The Cenozoic leaching of rocks by
weathering in humid climates—which
forms iron-rich residuals (laterization)
—also affected the uplands, from
northern Queensland to Tasmania.
 Lastly, during the Pleistocene, small
glaciers developed in the Mount
Kosciuszko area of New South Wales
and the central plateau of Tasmania.
 Small, ice-scoured hollows and small
moraines (ridges of glacial debris)
attest to those events, while over
rather wider areas frost-shattered
rocks that subsequently caused soils
to flow down-slope (solifluction) have
helped shape the surface.
 No snow normally survives through
summer in either of those areas now,
but in winter the snowfields of the
Mount Kosciuszko area alone are
more extensive than those of all
Switzerland, if far less heavily
supplied.
 Great Barrier Reef, off the
northeastern coast of Australia
 o The Great Barrier Reef is
related in important respects to
Climate
the Eastern Uplands.
o Lying off the Queensland coast,
that great system of coral reefs
and atolls owes its origin to a
combination of continental drift
(into warmer waters), rifting,
sea-level change, and
subsidence.
Soil
 In general, the continental pattern of
soils is closely related to climatic
factors.
 Mineral or skeletal soils exist over
much of arid Australia that contain
virtually no organic content and have
developed little depth; they may
consist merely of a rough mantle of
weathered rock.
 Gypsum is present in many of the
desert loams and arid red earths.
 The soils of the semiarid regions
(where annual precipitation is from 8 to
15 inches [203 to 380 mm]) are also
alkaline, with gypsum or lime a
common feature.
 The organic content of the soils is
again low in the solonized (salt-
enriched) brown soils and the gray and
brown soils of heavy texture that are
common in those areas.
 Australia is the arid continent. Over
some two-thirds of its landmass,
precipitation (largely as rainfall) per
annum averages less than 20 inches
(500 mm), and over one-third of it is
less than 10 inches (250 mm).
 Little more than one-tenth of the
continent receives more than 40
inches (1,000 mm) per year.
 As has been noted, in winter the
snowfields of Tasmania and the Mount
Kosciuszko area can be extensive, but
on the whole Australia is an
extremely hot country, in
consequence of which evaporation
losses are high and the effectiveness
of the rainfall received is reduced.
 In addition, the severity of climate, the
predominance of the outdoors in the
minds and lives of many, and the
national importance of agricultural and
pastoral pursuits all make Australians
perhaps more climate-conscious than
most.
 In no country of comparable
development do climate and weather
loom so large in the lives and
conversation of the people.
 The principal features of Australia’s
climate stem from its position, shape,
and size.
 Australia is mainly a compact tropical
and near-tropical continent.
 No major arms or embayment of the
sea penetrate far into the landmass.
 The only extensive uplands occur near
the east coast, and even they are not,
by world standards, very high.
 In summer (December–February),
when the sun is directly overhead in
northern Australia, temperatures are
extremely high.
 The sea exerts little moderating
influence, and the uplands are not
sufficiently extensive or high to have
more than local effects.
 Commonly, the temperatures soar
above the 100 °F (38 °C) mark in the
interior, but because there rarely is any
cloud cover, radiation loss is
considerable at night, and daily
temperature ranges are wide.
 High temperatures dominate the
Australian summers in all but
Tasmania.
 Heat waves are common, and, though
the highest amounts of solar radiation
are received in northern South
Australia, the highest temperatures
and longest heat waves are recorded
in the northwest of Western Australia.
 Temperatures in winter remain
moderate except in the uplands of
Tasmania and southeastern
Australia, where snow is common.
Night frosts are common in winter
throughout southern Australia and in
the interior.
 Southern Australia receives winter
rains from depressions associated
with the west-wind zone.
o Again, there are local
topographic controls, with
uplands receiving higher
amounts than the adjacent
plains.
o Parts of the southern Mount
Lofty Range, in South
Australia, average more than
40 inches (1,000 mm) of rainfall
per year,
o Adelaide, to the west,
averages only about 20 inches
(500 mm),
o The Murray plains, in the rain
shadows of the range, receive
15 inches (380 mm) or less
rainfall annually.
 In the great mass of the interior of
Australia, annual rainfall averages
less than 20 inches (500 mm), and
over vast areas the total is less than
10 inches (250 mm); the Lake Eyre
region averages less than half that
amount.
 Rainfall in those areas is unreliable
and capricious,
o with long droughts broken by
damaging rains and floods.
 Over Australia as a whole, rainfall is
indeed extremely variable.
 Only in the far north, around Darwin, in
the southwest of Western Australia, in
southern South Australia and Victoria,
in Tasmania, and in eastern New
South Wales is the recorded annual
precipitation fairly consistent, in any
given year totaling no more than 10
percent above or below the long-term
average in specific years.
 Because of its relatively low latitudinal
position, Australia comes under the
influence of the southeast trade
winds in the north and the westerlies
in the south.
 Northern Australia is affected by a
northerly monsoon, partly because of
the latitude and the seasonal migration
 of planetary wind zones and partly
because of the summer heating of the
continental interior that draws in
surface winds.
 The monsoon brings summer
(December–February) rains to the
northern coastal area that penetrate
inland for variable distances.
 The summer rains are all the more
important because most of northern
Australia is in the sheltered rain
shadow of the Eastern Uplands, which
block the rain-bearing southeast trades
in winter.
 The trades, forced to rise by the
uplands, bring heavy rains to the
Pacific coasts of Queensland and
northern New South Wales.
 Those areas that also affected by
tropical cyclones and receive the
heaviest rains of any part of
Australia. Within the coastal fringe,
the northern Queensland area around
Tully, south of Cairns, is the wettest,
with an annual average of nearly 160
inches (4,050 mm).
 Southern Australia receives winter
rains from depressions associated
with the west-wind zone. Again, there
are local topographic controls, with
uplands receiving higher amounts than
the adjacent plains.
 Parts of the southern Mount Lofty
Range, in South Australia, average
more than 40 inches (1,000 mm) of
rainfall per year,
o but Adelaide in the west,
averages only about 20 inches
(500 mm),
o while the Murray plains, in the
rain shadows of the range,
receive 15 inches (380 mm) or
less rainfall annually.
 In the great mass of the interior of
Australia, annual rainfall averages
less than 20 inches (500 mm), and
over vast areas the total is less than
10 inches (250 mm);
 the Lake Eyre region averages less
than half that amount.
o Rainfall in those areas is
unreliable and capricious,
with long droughts broken by
damaging rains and floods.
 Over Australia as a whole, rainfall is
indeed extremely variable.
o Only in the far north, around
Darwin,
o the southwest of Western
Australia,
o southern South Australia and
Victoria, in Tasmania,
o in eastern New South Wales is
the recorded annual
precipitation fairly consistent, in
any given year totaling no more
than 10 percent above or below
the long-term average in
specific years.
 The Australian climate is also
influenced by the phenomenon
known as the Indian Ocean Dipole
(IOD), which refers to the year-to-year
temperature differences between the
eastern and western portions of that
body of water.
 The IOD alternates between three
phases—positive, negative, and
neutral—each of which generally
occurs every three to five years.
o During the neutral phase, the
IOD has little influence on the
Australian climate. The
increased westerly winds that
arise during the negative phase
cause warmer water to
concentrate northwest of
Australia, ultimately producing
above-average rainfall in parts
of southern Australia.
o On the other hand, during the
positive phase, westerly winds
weaken, permitting warmer
water to move toward Africa,
lessening cloud creation over
Australia and reducing rainfall in
much of western, southern, and
eastern Australia.
o The SOI is strongly negative
when weak Pacific winds bring
 less moisture than usual to  The major structural units
Australia. Prolonged negative constituting the geographic
phases are related to El Niño distribution are
episodes in the South Pacific, o rainforest, sclerophyll forest
and most of Australia’s major (dominated by hard-leaved
droughts have been related to plants such as eucalypts),
those episodes. Prolonged o and woodland, scrub, savanna,
positive SOI phases (during La and grassland forms, each with
Niña) normally bring above- a range of subforms.
average rainfall and floods to  The bulk of the Tropical Zone
eastern and northern Australia. comprises mixed
In each case, however, the o deciduous woodland
correlations are not exact. o sclerophyllous
Vegetation o low-tree savanna, with areas of
tussock grassland, coastal
 Australian plant life is distributed in mangrove complexes, and
three main zones tropical rainforest containing
o Tropical- The Tropical Zone, much exotic vegetation—
which arcs east and west particularly in the northeastern
across the northern margin of parts of Cape York Peninsula
the continent and extends and in Queensland.
halfway down the eastern  A strong Malesian influence occurs
seaboard, has a mainly dry throughout the entire zone. The
monsoonal climate, with some rainforests—characterized by large
wet regions. trees with stem buttresses and by
o Temperate- The Temperate multiple vegetation layers with
Zone, with a cool-to-warm interlaced canopies of lianas and
(temperate-to-subtropical) epiphytes growing in the trees—fit the
climate and precipitation mostly popular concept of “jungle.”
in winter, is arced across the  The Temperate Zone is
southern margin, embracing characterized by
Tasmania and extending up the o dry and wet sclerophyllous
eastern seaboard to overlap forests,
slightly with the Tropical Zone. o temperate mixed woodlands,
o Eremian- The Eremian Zone
o savanna woodlands,
covers the whole of central
o mallees, and scrubs,
Australia through to the west-
o with areas of alpine
central coast; its climate is arid.
vegetational complexes,
 A pattern that reflects the overall
temperate rainforest, and
conditions
sclerophyllous heath.
 A much higher proportion of the
vegetation cover is typically and
recognizably “Australian.” Within
that zone the southwestern corner of
Western Australia is outstanding, both
for the high proportion of Australian
plants and for the richness of the plant
life, while the vegetation of Tasmania
is notable for its forests of southern
 beech and for its botanical links with
New Zealand and South America.
 In marked contrast to the tropical
rainforests, the predominant trees
throughout most of the Temperate
Zone communities are either
Eucalyptus or Acacia.
 Much of the Temperate Zone
vegetation has been cleared for
agricultural purposes, leaving only the
vegetation communities of infertile or
inaccessible localities. Mineral Resources
 The vegetation of the Eremian Zone
ranges from barely vegetated desert
and hills through a variety of semiarid
shrub savannas, shrub steppes,
semiarid tussock grasslands, and
sclerophyllous hummock grasslands.
 Many shrubs have adapted
themselves similarly to the arid
conditions, so that in their vegetative
state many representatives of different
families look alike. Acacia, Eremophila,
and Casuarina are examples of genera
that tend to displace Eucalyptus as the
dominant tree or shrub. Much of that
vegetation is badly degraded.
Animal Resources  Australia produces 19 useful
minerals in significant amounts, from
over 350 operating mines.
 From these minerals, useful materials
such as metals can be extracted.
 Australia is one of the world's leading
producers of bauxite (aluminium
ore), iron ore, lithium, gold, lead,
diamond, rare earth elements,
uranium, and zinc.
 Australia also has large mineral sand
deposits of ilmenite, zircon and
rutile.
 In addition, Australia produces large
quantities of
o black coal,
o manganese,
o antimony,
o nickel,
o silver,
o cobalt,
o copper
o tin.
  Mining occurs in all states of
Australia, the Northern Territory and
Christmas Island.
 There is no mining in the Australian
Capital Territory apart from quarries
used for construction materials.
Australia's Identified Mineral
Resources, has up-to-date information
on mineral resources in Australia
including resource estimates,
production and export figures.
Culture Geography
History
 Indigenous cultures shaped, and were
shaped by, the geography of Australia
and Oceania. Polynesian culture, for
example, developed as Southeast
Asian sailors explored the South
Pacific. This seafaring culture
developed almost entirely from its
geography.
 Beginning about 1500 BCE, sailors
began moving east from the island of
New Guinea. The farther they traveled,
the more advanced their navigation
became. Polynesians developed large,
double-hulled vessels called outrigger
canoes. Outrigger canoes could sail
very quickly across the Pacific, but
they could also be easily maneuvered
and paddled in rough weather. Along
with outrigger canoes, historic
Polynesian culture relied on a
sophisticated navigation system based
on observations of the stars, ocean
swells, and the flight patterns of birds.
 In another example, the Maori had a
significant impact on New Zealand’s
forests and fauna. Between the 14th
and the 19th centuries, Maori reduced
New Zealand’s forest cover by about
half, largely through controlled fires
used to clear land for agriculture.
 Aboriginal Australian cultures often
had strong spiritual relationships with
the local environment. They developed
myths to explain the landscape.
Modern scientific research has proven
that many of these myths are fairly
accurate historic records.
 One series of Aboriginal myths
explains that the Australian coastline
was once near the edge of the Great
Barrier Reef, for example. The reef is
now dozens, even hundreds, of meters
from the shore. Geologists have
proven that this story is accurate.
During the last glacial period, when
sea levels were lower, Australia’s
coastline did extend kilometers into
what is now the ocean.
Contemporary Cultures
 Australia and Oceania’s vast, ocean-
focused geography continues to
influence contemporary cultures.
Cultural groups and practices focus on
uniting peoples and consolidating
power in the face of their isolated
locations and small populations. These
unifying movements are seen at both
national and regional levels.
 Papua New Guinea demonstrates this
cultural unification at the national level.
The country is one of the most diverse
in the world, with more than 700
indigenous groups and 850 indigenous
languages. Indigenous groups are
explicitly recognized “as viable units of
Papua New Guinean society” within
the nation’s constitution. The
constitution also identifies and
promotes traditional practices as part
of contemporary culture.
 The indigenous groups’ traditional
lands are recognized by the national
legislature as customary land title.
Customary land title is a recognition
that ownership of traditional, tribal land
will remain with the indigenous
community. Almost all of the land in
Papua New Guinea is held with
customary land title; less than 3
percent of the land is privately owned.
 Indigenous groups regularly work with
the government and private companies
to harvest the resources on tribal land.
Conflicts over land use and resource
rights continue to occur between
 indigenous groups, the government,
and corporations.
 Cultural practices, especially in sports
and the arts, aim to unite Australia and
Oceania’s isolated peoples at a
regional level. Rugby is a very popular
sport throughout the continent—more
popular than soccer, baseball, or
cricket. Rugby league is the national
sport of Papua New Guinea. Rugby
union, which has fewer players and
slightly different rules than rugby
league, is the national sport of New
Zealand, Samoa, Fiji, and Tonga.
 Australia and New Zealand have
world-famous teams in both rugby
league and rugby union. Australia has
won the Rugby League World Cup a
record nine times and the Rugby
(Union) World Cup twice. The two
countries have often hosted these
tournaments, sometimes jointly, and
many countries participate. The
tournaments, regional play, and
friendly games that occur between
these countries make rugby a truly
unifying sport in Australia and
Oceania.
 The tourism industry is the unifying
economic force in Australia and
Oceania. Tourism is the continent’s
largest industry, measured by the
number of jobs it creates and the
money it spreads throughout the
Pacific Islands.
Political Geography
 Australia and Oceania’s history and
development have been shaped by its
political geography. Political
geography is the internal and
external relationships between its
various governments, citizens, and
territories.
Historical Issues
 The European colonization of Australia
and Oceania defined the continent’s
early political geography. Exploration
began in the 16th century when
Portuguese explorer Ferdinand
Magellan landed on the Mariana
Islands. European colonization was
fueled by a desire to defend nationalist
pride, increase trade opportunities,
and spread the Christian faith.
England, France, Germany, and Spain
became the most important colonial
powers in the region. Today, many
countries, especially Australia, New
Zealand, and New Caledonia, have
majority European populations and a
strong European culture. English is the
dominant language throughout most of
the continent.
 Indigenous populations were treated
harshly during the colonial period.
European powers claimed Australia
and Oceania’s lands as their own
because they considered them terra
nullius, or a “no man’s land” inhabited
by heathen natives. Colonizers
implemented their own systems of
governance, land management, and
trade. These efforts had severe
consequences that continue to affect
indigenous groups and their cultural
systems today.
 Foreign forces also transformed
Australia and Oceania’s political
landscape during World War II and the
Cold War. The Pacific theater was the
major battle zone between Japan and
the Allies during WWII. More than
215,000 Japanese, Australian, and
American troops died in the southern
Pacific theater between 1942 and
1945.
 As a result of the military campaigns in
Australia and Oceania, many territories
were given to Allied forces, such as
the Solomon Islands (United
Kingdom), the Northern Mariana
Islands (United States), and the
Marshall Islands (United States).
 During the Cold War, the isolated
islands of Australia and Oceania
became a popular location for
American, British, and French nuclear
testing. The most famous of these
experiments were carried out on the
Bikini Atoll, part of the Marshall
 Islands. The U.S. began testing atomic
weaponry at the Bikini Atoll in 1946.
Contemporary Issues
 Over the last half-decade, Australia
and Oceania’s indigenous groups have
fought to extend their political rights
and cultural significance in their home
countries. New Zealand’s Maori and
Aboriginal Australians are the main
drivers of this movement.
 The Maori Party was established in
2004 to represent the rights of the
Maori in New Zealand. The party’s
achievements for the Maori people are
numerous. The party founded the
Maori Economic Taskforce to increase
economic opportunity, secured a multi-
million-dollar economic package for
environmental initiatives, and created
a yearly fund of $5 million to help
Maori health providers develop
culturally sensitive programs.
 The Maori Party is also working to
incorporate the Treaty of Waitangi with
New Zealand’s constitution. Signed in
1840, the Treaty of Waitangi
recognized Maori land and property
ownership, and gave Maori the same
rights as the British. The treaty,
however, was never truly enforced,
and the Maori suffered from
mistreatment and discrimination.
Today, the Maori Party is looking to
legitimize the Treaty of Waitangi in
order to claim lands lost during
colonization.
 Aboriginal Australians, much like the
Maori, can be defined as a
marginalized population, or a group of
people who are treated as less
significant than the majority population.
Aborigines suffer from
disproportionately high rates of
disease, imprisonment, and
unemployment. Aborigines’ life
expectancy is about 18 to 19 years
less than non-indigenous people.
 Aborigines have a tense relationship
with their home country. In 2007, the
Northern Territory National Emergency
Response, a federal program, was
created to address concerns about
Aboriginal communities in Australia’s
isolated Northern Territory. The
program put sanctions on several
Aboriginal communities that were
charged with child abuse. Sanctions
included restrictions on the purchase
of alcohol and access to pornography.
These sanctions have been
condemned as racist by the United
Nations.
 The government of Australia is working
to resolve these tensions. In 2010, Ken
Wyatt became the first Aboriginal
Australian elected to the Australian
House of Representatives. In 2008,
former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd
issued a public apology to members of
the “Stolen Generations.” The Stolen
Generations were Aboriginal children
taken from their families and raised
under European supervision in group
homes. This policy began in 1869 and
officially ended in 1969.
Future Issues
 Australia and Oceania’s political and
financial future rests largely on its
efforts to minimize the effects of
climate change. In fact, many
scientists argue that Australia and
Oceania are the continent most
vulnerable to climate change because
of its climate and geography.
 The heavily coastal populations of the
continent’s small islands are
vulnerable to flooding and erosion
because of sea level rise. Fiji’s
shoreline has been receding about 15
centimeters (6 inches) per year over
the last 90 years, while Samoa has
lost about half a meter (1.5 feet) per
year during that same time span.
Warming temperatures have severely
damaged many of Australia and
Oceania’s coral reef ecosystems,
contributed to major droughts in
Australia, and increased glacier melt in
New Zealand and Papua New Guinea.
  Governments and intergovernmental
agencies in Australia and Oceania are
taking steps to minimize the effects of
climate change. As part of the 2009
Copenhagen Accord, countries such
as Australia and New Zealand agreed
to reduce carbon emissions. Other
Oceanic countries, such as Tuvalu,
argued that the international
agreement unfairly disadvantages
developing countries, especially small
island states.
 The Pacific Islands Forum (PIF)
advocates increased support from the
international community to assist these
island states in their efforts to adapt to
climate change. As part of the Pacific
Environment Community initiative, the
PIF secured about $66 million from
Japan to support projects that focus on
solar power generation and seawater
desalination
 The current population of Oceania is
42,990,033 as of Wednesday, January
27, 2021, based on the latest United
Nations estimates. Oceania population
is equivalent to 0.54% of the total
world population.
Language
 The major languages spoken today in
Oceania are based on English, some
French-based creole, some Japanese,
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
languages, Melanesian Pidgin,
Hawaiian, Polynesian languages,
Tahitian, and Maori.
Cultural Beliefs
 Australia, like other South Pacific
countries, blends both European and
indigenous elements in its culture. In
recent years Asian influences also
have increased in the region. In this
section you will learn about the
religions, arts, and lifestyles of the
peoples of Australia and Oceania. A
Blend of Cultures The movement of
different peoples into the South Pacific
region has contributed to the shaping
of cultures there. Indigenous peoples
developed lifestyles in harmony with
their natural environment. Later,
European immigrants brought their
ways of life, using the environment to
build Western-oriented societies.
 In many parts of Australia and
Oceania, people have urban lifestyles
that reflect modern influences. In other
places in the region, people live in a
more traditional way. Economics
Traditional and Modern Lifestyles
Some Pacific island countries, such as
Papua New Guinea, produce cash
crops, including sugarcane, coffee,
ginger, and copra––dried coconut
meat. Others, such as Kiribati, have
soil that is too poor for plantation
agriculture. Many Pacific islanders
work at subsistence farming, growing
only enough for their own needs.
These farmers grow bananas,
coconuts, or sweet potatoes; raise
chickens and pigs; or fish in ocean
waters. Other islanders work in
government offices, in the tourist trade,
or in other service industries. Kinship
ties are the basis of traditional life
throughout the region, but these bonds
have weakened as young people find
better job opportunities elsewhere.
Even so, important events draw distant
family members back home and help
maintain the culture.
 A typical traditional South Pacific
home is very simple in design. On
Samoa, this type of simple dwelling is
called a fale and has a thatched roof
for shelter and open sides that allow
cooling ocean breezes to circulate.
Blinds of coconut palm leaves can be
lowered for privacy.
 The simplicity of South Pacific island
life contrasts greatly with the fast-
paced, urbanized lifestyle in parts of
Australia and New Zealand, where
people are linked to the cities by roads
and modern communications
technology. A mild climate and
nearness to the sea enable many
people in the South Pacific region to
enjoy outdoor activities. Education and
 Health Care The quality of education
varies throughout the region. Both
Australia and New Zealand provide
free, compulsory education until age
15. Literacy rates are high in these two
countries, and many students attend
universities. Many students in
Australia’s remote outback receive and
turn in assignments by mail or
communicate with teachers by two-
way radios. Australians and New
Zealanders, especially those in cities,
generally have access to quality
medical care and other social services.
In some parts of Australia, rugged
terrain and long distance
Religion
 Australia, like other South Pacific
countries, blends both European and
indigenous elements in its culture.
 In recent years Asian influences also
have increased in the region.
 In this section you will learn about
the religions, arts, and lifestyles of
the peoples of Australia and
Oceania.
 A Blend of Cultures The movement of
different peoples into the South
Pacific region has contributed to
the shaping of cultures there.
Indigenous peoples developed
lifestyles in harmony with their natural
environment. Later, European
immigrants brought their ways of life,
using the environment to build
Western-oriented societies.
Sports and Leisure
 Sports and leisure activities reflect
the region’s diversity.
 Western-style resorts attract tourists
to the beaches, where they and the
local people enjoy the traditional
Pacific island sport of surfing.
 Traditional sports, such as
o outrigger canoe racing or
spearfishing, are popular, as
are Western sports.
o For example, British settlers
brought cricket and rugby to
Australia and New Zealand.
 In former American territories,
islanders play baseball.
 The French introduced cycling and
archery to islands they controlled.
 Even small communities often have
facilities for these and other sports,
o soccer
o volleyball
o tennis
 In urban areas of Australia and New
Zealand, where Western influence
dominates, leisure activities include
o boating,
o fishing,
o waterskiing,
o and other water sports along
the metropolitan beaches.
 In the next chapter, you will learn how
people in Australia and Oceania are
meeting the challenges of their
environment.
EDUCATION and HEALTH CARE
 The quality of education varies
throughout the region.
o Both Australia and New
Zealand provide free,
compulsory education until
age 15.
o Literacy rates are high in
these two countries, and
many students attend
universities.
o Many students in Australia’s
remote outback receive and
turn in assignments by mail or
 communicate with teachers by
two-way radios.
 Australians and New Zealanders,
especially those in cities, generally
have access to quality medical care
and other social services.
 In some parts of Australia,
o rugged terrain and long
distances make access to
health care difficult.
o Modern technology, however,
allows doctors to consult with
patients through the use of two-
way radios and through mobile
clinics of the Flying Doctor
Service.
 Indigenous peoples, however, often
do not receive these and other
benefits.
o For example, many Aborigines
suffer from poverty,
malnutrition, and
unemployment.
o In recent years the Australian
government and private
organizations have been trying
to make up for past injustices,
and the courts have recognized
the claims of Aborigines to
government assistance, land,
and natural resources.
o Many Pacific islanders also
lack an adequate standard of
living.
o On remote islands, fresh food,
electricity, schools, and
hospitals often are limited.
o Recently island countries, with
international assistance, have
begun to improve their quality of
life.