Tasmania is an island state of Australia. It is located 240 kilometres (150 miles) to the south of the Australian mainland, separated from it by the Bass Strait, with the archipelago containing the southernmost point of the country. The state encompasses the main island of Tasmania, the 26th-largest island in the world, and the surrounding 1000 islands. It is Australia's least populous state, with 569,825 residents as of December 2021. The state capital and largest city is Hobart, with around 40 percent of the population living in the Greater Hobart area. Tasmania is the most decentralised state in Australia, with the lowest proportion of it residents living within its capital city.
Van Diemen's Land was the colonial name of the island of Tasmania used by the British during the European exploration and colonisation of Australia in the 19th century. A British settlement was established in Van Diemen's Land in 1803 before it became a separate colony in 1825. Its penal colonies became notorious destinations for the transportation of convicts due to the harsh environment, isolation and reputation for being inescapable. Macquarie Harbour and Port Arthur are among the most well-known penal settlements on the island.
The Aboriginal Tasmanians are the Aboriginal people of the Australian island of Tasmania, located south of the mainland. For much of the 20th century, the Tasmanian Aboriginal people were widely, and erroneously, thought of as being an extinct cultural and ethnic group that had been intentionally exterminated by white settlers. Contemporary figures (2016) for the number of people of Tasmanian Aboriginal descent vary according to the criteria used to determine this identity, ranging from 6,000 to over 23,000.
The Black War was a period of violent conflict between British colonists and Aboriginal Tasmanians in Tasmania from the mid-1820s to 1832. The conflict, fought largely as a guerrilla war by both sides, claimed the lives of 600 to 900 Aboriginal people and more than 200 British colonists. The near-destruction of the Aboriginal Tasmanians and the frequent incidence of mass killings have sparked debate among historians over whether the Black War should be defined as an act of genocide.
The history of Tasmania begins at the end of the Last Glacial Period when it is believed that the island was joined to the Australian mainland. Little is known of the human history of the island until the British colonisation of Tasmania in the 19th century.
Flinders Island, the largest island in the Furneaux Group, is a 1,367-square-kilometre (528 sq mi) island in the Bass Strait, northeast of the island of Tasmania. Today Flinders Island is part of the state of Tasmania, Australia. It is 54 kilometres (34 mi) from Cape Portland and is located on 40° south, a zone known as the Roaring Forties.
The history of Australia from 1788 to 1850 covers the early British colonial period of Australia's history. This started with the arrival in 1788 of the First Fleet of British ships at Port Jackson on the lands of the Eora, and the establishment of the penal colony of New South Wales as part of the British Empire. It further covers the European scientific exploration of the continent and the establishment of the other Australian colonies that make up the modern states of Australia.
Ben Lomond is a mountain in the north-east of Tasmania, Australia.
Deddington is a rural locality in the local government area (LGA) of Northern Midlands in the Central LGA region of Tasmania. The locality is about 34 kilometres (21 mi) east of the town of Longford. The 2016 census has a population of 121 for the state suburb of Deddington. The town is situated on the Nile River and lies in the foothills of Ben Lomond.
The North Esk River is a major perennial river located in the northern region of Tasmania, Australia.
The modern history of the Australian city of Hobart in Tasmania dates to its foundation as a British colony in 1804. Prior to British settlement, the area had been occupied definitively for at least 8,000 years, and possibly for as long as 35,000 years, by the semi-nomadic Mouheneener tribe, a sub-group of the Nuenonne, or South-East tribe. The descendants of theses indigenous Tasmanians now refer to themselves as 'Palawa'. Little is known about the region from prehistoric times. As with many other Australia cities, urbanisation has destroyed much of the archaeological evidence of indigenous occupation, although aboriginal middens are often still present in coastal areas.
The Tasmanian emu is an extinct subspecies of emu. It was found in Tasmania, where it had become isolated during the Late Pleistocene. As opposed to the other insular emu taxa, the King Island emu and the Kangaroo Island emu, the population on Tasmania was sizable, meaning that there were no marked effects of small population size as in the other two isolates.
Musquito was an Indigenous Australian resistance leader, convict hunter and outlaw based firstly in the Sydney region of the British colony of New South Wales and later in Van Diemen's Land.
Campbell Town is a town in Tasmania, Australia, on the Midland Highway. At the 2021 census, the town had a population of 823.
The Colony of Tasmania was a British colony that existed on the island of Tasmania from 1856 until 1901, when it federated together with the five other Australian colonies to form the Commonwealth of Australia. The possibility of the colony was established when the Parliament of the United Kingdom passed the Australian Constitutions Act in 1850, granting the right of legislative power to each of the six Australian colonies. The Legislative Council of Van Diemen's Land drafted a new constitution which they passed in 1854, and it was given royal assent by Queen Victoria in 1855. Later in that year the Privy Council approved the colony changing its name from "Van Diemen's Land" to "Tasmania", and in 1856, the newly elected bicameral parliament of Tasmania sat for the first time, establishing Tasmania as a self-governing colony of the British Empire. Tasmania was often referred to as one of the "most British" colonies of the Empire.
'Tarenorerer, also known as Montserrat, Tuculillo, or Walloa, was a rebel leader of the Indigenous Australians in Tasmania. Between 1828 and 1830, she led a guerrilla band of indigenous people of both sexes against the British colonists in Tasmania during the Black War.
Crime in Tasmania has existed since the earliest days of the European settlement in 1803. Laws creating criminal offences are contained entirely in statutes, statutory regulations, and by-laws, common law offences having been abolished by the Criminal Code Act 1924 s 6. Most offences are enforced by Tasmania Police, although a small category of offences are prosecuted by other statutory authorities such as local governments, and the Tasmanian branch of RSPCA Australia. All offences are prosecuted through the Tasmanian justice system, and sentences of imprisonment are administered by the Tasmania Prison Service. Some crime statistics for Tasmania are provided on the Tasmania Police website.
Eumarrah was an Aboriginal Tasmanian leader. He was active in resisting British colonisation during the 1820s and early 1830s, but was ultimately captured and used as a guide in operations tracking down and removing other Indigenous people.
Montpelliatta was a leader of the 'Big River' group of Aboriginal Tasmanian clans during the Black War of the 1820s and early 1830s in Tasmania. He is regarded as one of the main organisers of Aboriginal resistance to British colonisation during this period.
Kikatapula was a leading Indigenous figure during the British invasion and colonisation of Van Diemen's Land, later known as Tasmania. Also called Kickerterpoller or Black Tom Birch, he spent part of his youth living with the colonists, learning English and being baptised as a Christian. During the 1820s, he withdrew from British ways, and became a feared and formidable leader of Indigenous resistance during the early stages of the Black War.
