The Australian States
Canberra is located 300km southern of Sydney. It is the capital since 1927of the Australian Commonwealth with its own District. Canberra has been planed by the American architect Walter Burley-Griffin and is a modern city, marked by government buildings. In this city live a lot of politicians, diplomats and officials and also there is the High Court of Justice, the Federal Government, national gallery, the War Memorial Museum and the royal-Australian coin place, where the Australian gold was produced.
New South Wales, Australia’s oldest state, is proud to be “larger than Texas”. Anyway, the pacific coastal area is industrial centre and conurbation of the population. The most significant location for coal and steel, Newcastle and Wollongong, are located next to Sydney.
The wonderful Blue Mountains behind Sydney are part of the Great Dividing Range. Its plate landings and the western slopes, which are as pastures, used for agricultural cultivations and forestry, the headwaters for the course of the river Darling and Murray, which flow inland. The Murray waters the Riverina, the most fertile region for wheat, fruits and mixed cultures.
The lonely western plains, which is grazed by the millions of sheep and cattle, stretches away to Broken Hill, a mining town for lead, silver and zinc in the outback, 1170 km western from Sydney and near by South Australia’s border.
A quarter of the Australian population lives in Victoria, the smallest station the continent. Melbourne, the capital, is mainly a location for producing industries. Though the state has together with New South Wales at the Murray, the northern border of Victoria, large cultivations for fruit and mixed cultures. The Murray, a huge pasture, is located westerly. The south-eastern coastal region is important for dairying and timber industry and at present it is Victoria’s “power station”. Supported by large brown coal deposits in the Latrobe Valley and oil and natural gas founding at the Bass-Street, the region developed into a location for energy production.
South Australia is the gate for the trains and the traffic o central Australia. Its industrial cities are Whyalla, Port Augusta and Port Pirie, known as the “iron triangle” of the Spencer golf. There the mineral resources from Broken Hill and Mount Isa get processed in the back-up area and transported by ship.
The Murray passes the state’s most important growing areas of wheat, fruit and wine in South Australia, how the Barossa Valley is the most popular wine growing area in Australia. The Murray is the only really important river in South Australia. To the scenic unusually quality of the state counts the Great Victoria Desert, the treeless Nullarbor Plain and the legendary Flinders Range, which runs off the north in direction of the Lake Eyre.
Queensland is the state with the highest opposites. In the north, there are tropical mountainous rainforests the mangrove swamps, river deltas in which crocodiles live. In the coastal areas, where most people live, sugar cane, tobacco, and wheat are cultivated. The sheep and the cattle live in the wide plain of the Inner Plain. In remote mining villages, bauxite, lead, zinc, copper and silver are mined a lot. Besides, Queensland is Australia’s leading holiday state. Outside of the coast is the Great Barrier Reef, which is the guarantor for special diving experience. Starting point to get to the Great Barrier Reef are Cairns and Townsville.
Tasmania, which is because of its fruit-growing known as the “island of apples”, is Australia’s smallest state. The island is a paradise for nature conservators and travellers with its wild hilly or mountainous region, its wild going rivers and beautiful valleys. Infrequent animals, like the Tasmanian devil, lives there. The island was discovered in 1642 by Abel Tasman and has been disreputable prisoner colony. At present it is because of its tourism, of the fruit and vegetable cultivation and of the wolfram and tin mining economic important. The capital Hobart is the finish of a classical yacht race against Sydney and Hobart.
Western Australia, Australia’s largest state, includes nearly a third of the whole Australian continent. For the most part it is captured by the Nullarbor Plain, the Great Victoria Desert, the Gibson Desert and the Great Sandy Desert. Millions of sheep and cattle graze in this semi-arid region. Pilbara in north-west is Australia’s largest ore deposit. One of the largest wheat plains is located eastern of Perth and in the backer-up regions are the large gold and nickel mines in Kambalda and Kalgoorlie. Because of Western Australia being remote, the countryside is lasted largely untouched. A flight to Sydney lasts four and a half hours.
The Northern Territory is considered as Australia’s “upper ending“. The gigantic cattle farms, the tourism and the two seasons – warm, arid winters and hot, humid summers, honour the region. Immense cyclones in summer pass this region. Darwin was destroyed by the cyclone “Tracy” in 1974, but is rebuilt by now. The Northern Territory has a lot of deposits, like bauxite and uranium, and it exhibits some Australian well-known attractions, e.g. Alice Springs and Ayers Rock. Visitors need a special provision for the Aborigine reserves in Arnhem-Land.
Animals and Plants
Some of the strangest kinds of animals and most magnificent flowers can be found in Australia. With this are some special kinds of mammals, the marsupials, e.g. the kangaroo, the wombat and the koala. Most of the mammals like horses, lions and human beings are placentation, this means the baby stays inside its mother and is fed by the placenta until it is large enough to be born. On the other hand, the marsupial baby is born as an embryo and then it stays in the bag at the mother’s stomach and there it suckles mother’s milk, until it is viable.
In comparison, marsupials seem to be weaker than the placentation, why a lot of people thought they must be inferior. Nevertheless, the way how feed their babies is perfect adaptation for the dry surroundings in Australia, where droughts can last for years. The foetus tries even to then to get food when its mother does not get enough food. The embryo of the marsupials will never be large enough to live of its mother; if there is not enough milk, it will die.
Evolution of Marsupials
Even though they are an important part in the Australian fauna, the marsupials probable do not come from Australia. The North American opossum is a marsupial and also more kinds are in South America and New Guinea. The oldest known marsupial, which existed 100 million years ago, lived in North America and is probable gone to South America, when this land was part of the south continent Gondwana. There it spread, until Gondwana broke into the pieces South America, Antarctica, Africa, India, and Australia. The placentation pushed forward onto all ever been Gondwana’s continent, but only a few reached Australia. So the marsupials could claim the Australian continent, when Gondwana split up Australia. On the island the marsupials developed that they reach every recess the mammals would reach. Quick grazing animals like the kangaroo is in accordance the red deer, the wombat lives like a pig on the ground, the koala graze through the trees and is something between monkeys and sloths. Other marsupials are simular to mice and moles, while the probable dyed out marsupial wolf and the quoll were simular to cats and dogs.
Earlier the marsupials were indeed more different. E.g. the diprotodont has been as tall as a rhinoceros and filled the recess of the giant grazing animal. It seemed there was not any large-growing carnivores whose catch it has been. Perhaps large-grown reptiles filled this evolution recess. There are still big snakes, crocodiles and saurians in Australia. In addition, there are some very big non-flyable birds, like the in groups living emus.
Fauna
Just as there is a strange flora, there is a strange fauna. The dry bush in West Australia conceals 9000 sorts of blooming plants, compared with just 1500 ones England. Hundreds of tree sorts exist at the same time in the northern tropical rainforests, but the most unusually and characteristic trees are amongst to the eucalyptus. They flourish in enormous dry areas because they can store with their thick elastic leaves water and the roots reach deep in the ground. However, a lot of biologists think, that how they survive is because of the soft-hearted, bright bark. Fires often rage in the dry areas and the bark of the eucalyptus trees which reflects the heat seems to be nearly fire-proof.
The people have sustained damaged the environment in Australia. The Aborigines have not as much in the latest 40 000 years as the whites destroyed when they became the dingo established 3000 years ago and drove the marsupial wolf off. However he Europeans have lots of region destroyed in the latest 200 years, especially after the World War II. In parts of Western Australia is 90%of the plants and also animals, which have bee dependent in them, disappeared. The persisting rest is stressed a lot, even when there is not any visible harm. E.g. a lot of cockatoos live still in Australia, but some of them have not brooded for decanes.
The animals, which came through Europeans to Australia, acceded to destroy the land too. Rabbits harm mainly the grazing lands. Nature conservators say cats and foxes, which were abandoned to haunt the rabbits in the 19. Century, have harmed more. The rapacious behaviour of cats and foxes and their unrestricted multiplying became responsible for that.
The Australians fight with all legal methods to keep what has survived till now. Nature conservation motion gets stronger and stronger, because some politicians and businessmen do not agree with them.
Maybe I should try to become a teacher in Australia! 
ore to produce
