Australia - a short introduction

Australia with its six states and its two territories is the remotest of the settled continents. The name Australia comes from the Latin expression "Terra Australis Incognita", which simply means "Southern land". It was originally part of the ancient continent of Gondwanaland. Australia emerged as a separate continent about 100 million years ago, when Antarctica broke away and drifted southwards. Australia is still a moving island. The first Europeans in Australia were almost certainly the Portuguese. The first confirmed visit was undertaken by the Dutch in 1616. In the following years Great Britain sent their convicts to Australia. In total, Britain transported 130.000 convicts to Australia also for the most trivial crimes. There were about 300.000 Aborigines in Australia when the Europeans arrived. Today about 200.00 Aborigines live in Australia.

The major cities of Australia are Sydney, which is the largest city, Canberra, which is the capital of Australia and Melbourne. The Australians are very friendly, outgoing and informal people. It′s easy to come into contact with them and you won′t have problems to finding a way to handle them in business deals. Australia is a federal parliamentary democracy, an independent self-governing state and a member of the Commonwealth of Nations. The constitution is based on the British parliamentary traditions; the head of the state is the British sovereign.

Australia is very rich in natural resources and also has a large industry. Today, agriculture accounts for only 3 percent of the GDP, the gross domestic product. The most important economy factor is the service sector, first of all the financial service sector which accounted in the 1990s for more than 60 percent of the Australian gross domestic product. But also, tourism has increased during the last years because of the cheaper long haul flights and the all inclusive tourism offers which are becoming more and more interesting even for the European. In Australia more and more tourism sights, national parks... opens every year.