Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia,[19] is a country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands.[20] Australia is the largest country by area in Oceania and the world's sixth-largest country. Australia is the oldest,[21] flattest,[22] and driest inhabited continent,[23][24] with the least fertile soils.[25][26] It is a megadiverse country, and its size gives it a wide variety of landscapes and climates, with deserts in the centre, tropical rainforests in the north-east, tropical savannas in the north, and mountain ranges in the south-east.

The ancestors of Aboriginal Australians began arriving from south-east Asia 50,000 to 65,000 years ago, during the last glacial period.[27][28][29] They settled the continent and had formed approximately 250 distinct language groups by the time of European settlement, maintaining some of the longest known continuing artistic and religious traditions in the world.[30] Australia's written history commenced with European maritime exploration. The Dutch were the first known Europeans to reach Australia, in 1606. British colonisation began in 1788 with the establishment of the penal colony of New South Wales. By the mid-19th century, most of the continent had been explored by European settlers and five additional self-governing British colonies were established, each gaining responsible government by 1890. The colonies federated in 1901, forming the Commonwealth of Australia.[31] This continued a process of increasing autonomy from the United Kingdom, highlighted by the Statute of Westminster Adoption Act 1942, and culminating in the Australia Acts of 1986.[31]

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Australia is a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy comprising six states and ten territories: the states of New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, Tasmania, South Australia and Western Australia; the major mainland Australian Capital Territory and Northern Territory; and other minor or external territories. Its population of nearly 27 million[13] is highly urbanised and heavily concentrated on the eastern seaboard.[32] Canberra is the nation's capital, while its most populous cities are Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide, which each possess a population of at least one million inhabitants.[33] Australian governments have promoted multiculturalism since the 1970s.[34] Australia is culturally diverse and has one of the highest foreign-born populations in the world.[35][36] Its abundant natural resources and well-developed international trade relations are crucial to the country's economy, which generates its income from various sources: predominantly services (including banking, real estate and international education) as well as mining, manufacturing and agriculture.[37][38] It ranks highly for quality of life, health, education, economic freedom, civil liberties and political rights.[39]

Australia has a highly developed market economy and one of the highest per capita incomes globally.[40][41][42] It is a middle power, and has the world's thirteenth-highest military expenditure.[43][44] It is a member of international groups including the United Nations; the G20; the OECD; the World Trade Organization; Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation; the Pacific Islands Forum; the Pacific Community; the Commonwealth of Nations; and the defence and security organisations ANZUS, AUKUS, and the Five Eyes. It is also a major non-NATO ally of the United States.[45]

The name Australia (pronounced /əˈstreɪliə/ in Australian English[46]) is derived from the Latin Terra Australis ("southern land"), a name used for a hypothetical continent in the Southern Hemisphere since ancient times.[47] Several 16th-century cartographers used the word Australia on maps, but not to identify modern Australia.[48] When Europeans began visiting and mapping Australia in the 17th century, the name Terra Australis was applied to the new territories.[N 5]

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Until the early 19th century, Australia was best known as New Holland, a name first applied by the Dutch explorer Abel Tasman in 1644 (as Nieuw-Holland) and subsequently anglicised. Terra Australis still saw occasional usage, such as in scientific texts.[N 6] The name Australia was popularised by the explorer Matthew Flinders, who said it was "more agreeable to the ear, and an assimilation to the names of the other great portions of the Earth".[54] The first time that Australia appears to have been officially used was in April 1817, when Governor Lachlan Macquarie acknowledged the receipt of Flinders' charts of Australia from Lord Bathurst.[55] In December 1817, Macquarie recommended to the Colonial Office that it be formally adopted.[56] In 1824, the Admiralty agreed that the continent should be known officially by that name.[57] The first official published use of the new name came with the publication in 1830 of The Australia Directory by the Hydrographic Office.[58]

Colloquial names for Australia include "Oz", "Straya" and "Down Under".[59] Other epithets include "the Great Southern Land", "the Lucky Country", "the Sunburnt Country", and "the Wide Brown Land". The latter two both derive from Dorothea Mackellar's 1908 poem "My Country".[60]