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Top End Northern Territory | |||||||||
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Coordinates | 13°23′S132°58′E / 13.39°S 132.96°E | ||||||||
Area | 245,000 km2 (94,595.0 sq mi) | ||||||||
Time zone | ACST (UTC+09:30) | ||||||||
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The Top End of Australia's Northern Territory is a geographical region encompassing the northernmost section of the Northern Territory, which aside from the Cape York Peninsula is the northernmost part of the Australian continent. It covers a rather vaguely defined area of about 245,000 square kilometres (95,000 sq mi) behind the northern coast from the Northern Territory capital of Darwin across to Arnhem Land with the Indian Ocean on the west, the Arafura Sea to the north, and the Gulf of Carpentaria to the east, and with the almost waterless semi-arid interior of Australia to the south, beyond the huge Kakadu National Park. [1]
The Top End contains the Territory's regional center and its capital city, Darwin, as well as major towns such as Palmerston and Katherine. The well-known town of Alice Springs is located further south, in the arid southern part of the Northern Territory, sometimes referred to by Australians as the Red Centre.
The landscape is relatively flat with river floodplains and grasslands with eucalyptus trees along with rocky areas and patches of rainforest, and in western Arnhem Land a high rugged sandstone plateau cut through with gorges, much of which is in Kakadu National Park. The rivers that form the wetlands include the South and East Alligator Rivers, Mary River, and the Glyde River. The climate is tropical monsoon with a wet and dry season, bringing the highest rainfall in northern Australia (over 1,200 mm (47 in) per year). Temperatures do not fluctuate widely throughout the year.
There are a number of islands off the Top End coast including the Tiwi Islands (Bathurst Island and Melville Island), and Groote Eylandt as well as many smaller ones.
Most savanna in Australia is used for grazing livestock, but in this far north, vast areas of grassland are in their original state and dotted with Darwin stringybark and Darwin woollybutt eucalyptus trees; these grasslands are a unique and highly important ecoregion. [2] The sandstone plateau area of the ecoregion is a particularly rich centre of biodiversity supporting a unique heathland flora. The northern Top End is within the Arnhem Land tropical savanna ecoregion. A belt of transitional tropical savannas and woodlands (Carpentaria, Kimberley, and Victoria Plains) lies between the Top End and the semi-arid mulga scrubland, mallee, and sand dunes of Australia's centre. The transition is gradual, and the demarcation line that divides the Top End from the centre is arbitrary. [3]
This area is home to unique wildlife. The rivers and estuaries are home to large populations of both saltwater and freshwater crocodiles, as well as bull sharks, sawfish, and dugongs. The wetlands are a rich habitat vital to bird migration and home to large populations of birds, including the world's largest breeding colony of magpie geese, as well as large numbers of rodents and snakes. [4] Endemic species of the Top End include the Woodward's wallaroo, Oenpelli python, chestnut-quilled rock-pigeon, Arnhem Land rock rat, and several species of skinks. Other reptiles include frill-necked lizards and large monitor lizards (known locally as goannas). Snakes include the olive python, death adder (Acanthophis), mulga, water python ( Liasis fuscus ), and various others. The plateau is home to many of these endemics, especially invertebrates, fish, and frogs, including, for example, hundreds of species of ants. The offshore islands are home to unique subspecies of some of this wildlife.
The landscape is well preserved and most of the area is traditionally managed by Aboriginal land trusts, including Kakadu National Park, which is Australia's largest national park and a World Heritage Site. [1] Although some populations have declined, there have been no major extinctions of wildlife in this area. Darwin, though, is a growing city and a base for agriculture and mining, both of which threaten habitats. Introduced plants and animals, such as the water buffalo, are also changing natural habitats, and there has been criticism of the way the local population has changed the fire regimes used to control the bush foliage, in which large areas are burnt each year and allowed to renew. Also there was a large aboriginal trade in that area [ clarification needed ] which has mostly settled down.
Kakadu National Park is a protected area in the Northern Territory of Australia, 171 km (106 mi) southeast of Darwin. It is a World Heritage Site. Kakadu is also gazetted as a locality, covering the same area as the national park, with 313 people recorded living there in the 2016 Australian census.
The Gulf of Carpentaria is a sea off the northern coast of Australia. It is enclosed on three sides by northern Australia and bounded on the north by the eastern Arafura Sea, which separates Australia and New Guinea. The northern boundary is generally defined as a line from Slade Point, Queensland in the northeast, to Cape Arnhem on the Gove Peninsula, Northern Territory in the west.
Alligator Rivers is the name of an area in an Arnhem Land region of the Northern Territory of Australia, containing three rivers, the East, West, and South Alligator Rivers. It is regarded as one of the richest biological regions in Australia, with part of the region in the Kakadu National Park. It is an Important Bird Area (IBA), lying to the east of the Adelaide and Mary River Floodplains IBA. It also contains mineral deposits, especially uranium, and the Ranger Uranium Mine is located there. The area is also rich in Australian Aboriginal art, with 1500 sites. The Kakadu National Park is one of the few World Heritage sites on the list because of both its natural and human heritage values. They were explored by Lieutenant Phillip Parker King in 1820, who named them in the mistaken belief that the crocodiles in the estuaries were alligators.
The Barkly Tableland is a region in the Central East if the Northern Territory, extending into Western Queensland. The region was named after Sir Henry Barkly. The epithet “Tableland” is inaccurate, since the region is neither elevated relative to adjacent landforms, nor are the boundaries marked by a distinct change in elevation.
The Ord Victoria Plain, an interim Australian bioregion, is located in the Northern Territory and Western Australia, comprising 12,540,703 hectares.
The Northern Territory (NT) occupies the north central part of the continent of Australia. The Northern Territory borders are to the west with Western Australia, the Western Australia border being near the 129° east longitude. The NT to the south with the South Australian border being the 26th parallel south latitude. To the east the NT with the Queensland border along the 138° east longitude.
The Brigalow Belt is a wide band of acacia-wooded grassland that runs between tropical rainforest of the coast and the semi-arid interior of Queensland and northern New South Wales, Australia. The Interim Biogeographic Regionalisation for Australia (IBRA) divides the Brigalow Belt into two IBRA regions, or bioregions, Brigalow Belt North (BBN) and Brigalow Belt South (BBS). The North and South Brigalow Belt are two of the 85 bioregions across Australia and the 15 bioregions in Queensland. Together they form most of the Brigalow tropical savanna ecoregion.
The Arnhem Land tropical savanna is a tropical and subtropical grasslands, savannas, and shrublands ecoregion in Australia's Northern Territory.
The Carpentaria tropical savanna is a tropical and subtropical grasslands, savannas, and shrublands ecoregion in northern Australia.
The Kimberley tropical savanna is a tropical and subtropical grasslands, savannas, and shrublands ecoregion in northwestern Australia, covering portions of Western Australia and the Northern Territory south of the Timor Sea.
The Trans Fly savanna and grasslands are a lowland ecoregion on the south coast of the island of New Guinea in both the Indonesian and Papua New Guinean sides of the island. With their monsoon and dry season climate these grasslands are quite different from the tropical rainforest that covers most of the island and resemble the landscape of northern Australia which lies to the south.
The Victoria Plains tropical savanna is a tropical and subtropical grasslands, savannas, and shrublands ecoregion in northwestern Australia.
The Mulga Lands are an interim Australian bioregion of eastern Australia consisting of dry sandy plains with low mulga woodlands and shrublands that are dominated by Acacia aneura (mulga). The Eastern Australia mulga shrublands ecoregion is coterminous with the Mulga Lands bioregion.
The Southeast Australia temperate savanna ecoregion is a large area of grassland dotted with eucalyptus trees running north–south across central New South Wales, Australia.
Federal and territory government agencies divide the Northern Territory of Australia into different administrative regions, though their names and boundaries vary.
The northern masked owl is a large forest owl in the family Tytonidae. The northern kimberli subspecies was identified as a novel race of the Australian masked owl by the Australian ornithologist Gregory Macalister Mathews in his 1912 reference list of Australian birds. The northern masked owl occurs in forest and woodland habitats in northern Australia, ranging from the northern Kimberley region to the northern mainland area of the Northern Territory and the western Gulf of Carpentaria. While the Australian masked owl is recognized as the largest species in the family Tytonidae, the northern masked owl is one of the smallest of the Australian masked owl subspecies.
The Cape York Peninsula tropical savanna is a tropical grasslands, savannas, and shrublands ecoregion in northern Australia. It occupies the Cape York Peninsula in Queensland, mainland Australia's northernmost point. It is coterminous with the Cape York Peninsula, an interim Australian bioregion.
The Mitchell Grass Downs is a tropical and subtropical grasslands, savannas, and shrublands ecoregion in northeastern Australia. It is a mostly treeless grassland, characterised by Mitchell grasses .
Tiwi Cobourg is an interim Australian bioregion located in the Top End of the Northern Territory of Australia. It has an area of 1,010,580 hectares, which includes the Cobourg Peninsula of Arnhem Land, Croker Island, and the Tiwi Islands. The bioregion is part of the Arnhem Land tropical savanna ecoregion.