Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the world's smallest continent, the major island of Tasmania and a number of other islands in the Southern, Indian, and Pacific Oceans. Neighbouring countries include Indonesia, East Timor and Papua New Guinea to the north, the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and the French dependency of New Caledonia to the northeast, and New Zealand to the southeast. The mainland of Australia has been inhabited for thousands of years by indigenous Australians. After sporadic visits by fishermen from the north and by European explorers and merchants starting in the seventeenth century, the eastern half of the mainland was claimed by the British in 1770 and officially settled through penal transportation as the colony of New South Wales on January 26, 1788. As the population grew and new areas were explored, another five largely self-governing Crown Colonies were successively established over the course of the 19th century. On January 1, 1901, the six colonies became a Federation, and the Commonwealth of Australia was formed. Since federation, Australia has maintained a stable liberal democratic political system and remains a Commonwealth Realm. The capital city is Canberra, located in the Australian Capital Territory. The current national population is approximately 20.6 million people, and is concentrated mainly in the large coastal cities of Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide (This portion of our site is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Australia").

Evangelical believers represent 12.5% of the population of Australia (Patrick Johnstone and Jason Mandryk, Operation World. Milton Keynes, United Kingdom, 2005, pg. 84).

If you have a story or prayer request related to Australia, please feel free to share it with us. You must be a registered member of our site to submit a news story or prayer request, but don't worry — registration is free! Our hope is that this section of our site will become a venue where long-term missionaries, short-term missions teams, missions agencies, and believers with a heart for Australia can gather and discuss God's plan and desires for the people of Australia, encourage one another, share stories and prayer requests, etc.