Tasmania

The island south of the continent, and the site of the most complete destruction in Australian colonial history. Van Diemen's Land was settled in 1803, partly to forestall a French claim, and became the harshest convict destination in the empire: around seventy-five thousand were transported there, and the secondary punishment stations at Macquarie Harbour and Port Arthur were designed to be places convicts feared. Transportation ended in 1853 and the colony renamed itself Tasmania shortly afterwards, an attempt to shed the association that partly worked. The island's Aboriginal population, isolated for around twelve thousand years after the land bridge flooded, numbered a few thousand at contact. The Black War of the 1820s and 1830s, fought over land and abductions, combined with disease to reduce them to a remnant, who were removed to Flinders Island where most died. Truganini, who died in 1876, was long described as the last Tasmanian Aboriginal person; that claim is false, and the Palawa community descended from island sealers' families persists and is recognised today. Tasmania joined the federation in 1901 and has been its poorest and slowest-growing state, kept solvent by federal transfers and heavily over-represented in the Senate. Its politics turned on hydroelectric dams for most of the twentieth century, and the campaign that stopped the Franklin dam in 1983 created the world's first green party to win national seats. Nearly half the island is protected wilderness. Hobart, founded in 1804, is Australia's second-oldest city. Port Arthur is now a World Heritage convict site. The island is separated from the mainland by Bass Strait. Its apples once gave it the name the Apple Isle.

• Existed: 1803 CE – present
• Type: Entity