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Tasmania
Tasmania is by far the smallest of the six Australian states, only the Australian Capital
Territory occupying less space. It is also the only island state or territory. Tasmania has
an area of 68,400 square kilometres. It is less than a third of the size of the next smallest
state, its neighbour Victoria, and it represents a little less than one per cent of the total
Australian land mass. Tasmania has a population of 500,000, of which 200,000 live in
Hobart, the capital.
The history of the island of Tasmania goes back a long way. It was originally a part of the
Australian mainland, but was cut off by rising waters some 12,000 years ago. Aborigines
had already been living here for 10,000 to 15,000 years, and, as they became isolated
from their relatives on the other side of the water, they and their culture developed in
different ways.
The first European known to have visited was Abel Tasman. He sighted the west coast at
16:00 on 24th November 1642, but did not appreciate that it was an island separate from
the main Australian continent. It was he who gave it the name of Van Diemen’s Land,
Van Diemen being the Governor-General of the Dutch East India Company in Batavia
(Jakarta), which had commissioned this voyage of exploration.
The island was renamed Tasmania in 1856. Tasmania was also visited by Marion du
Fresne (French) in 1772, Tobias Furneaux (British) in 1773, James Cook (British) in
1777, William Bligh (British) in 1788 and 1792 and Bruni d’Entrecasteaux (French) in
1792. For Cook it was his last visit before he sailed to meet his death in Hawaii, and for
Bligh it was his last stop before sailing to Tahiti, after which the infamous mutiny on the
Bounty occurred. In 1798 George Bass and Matthew Flinders circumnavigated Tasmania
and proved it to be an island, also naming the Bass Strait which separates Tasmania from
Victoria.
The first European settlement of Tasmania was in 1803, and Hobart dates from 1804.
Thus, of all the Australian states, only New South Wales has a longer history of European
settlement than Tasmania.
Some of the fiercest clashes between Europeans and aborigines occurred in Tasmania and
resulted in the virtual extermination of the aboriginal peoples of this state. They
succumbed to European diseases as well as to physical oppression and in 1832 it was
decided to move the remnants of the indigenous peoples to Flinders Island, off the northeastern
coast of Tasmania. However, they were poorly sheltered and cared for there and
the decline in numbers continued. In 1847, the survivors were returned to Oyster Cove,
near Hobart, but by 1876, the last of the group, the famed Trugannini, had perished, to
end a dismal chapter in the history of colonisation.
This depth of history here in Tasmania is not always appreciated by visitors to Australia,
who often by-pass this small state, especially as it is an island which is rather expensive
to reach. It is well worth the effort, however, for Tasmania has a beauty of its own and an
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