New South Wales

"NSW" redirects here. For other uses, see NSW (disambiguation).

New South Wales (abbreviated as NSW) is Australia's most populous state, located in the south-east of the country, north of Victoria and south of Queensland. It was founded in 1788 and originally comprised much of the Australian mainland. During the 19th century large areas were successively separated to form the British colonies of Tasmania (1825), Victoria (1851), Queensland (1859), and South Australia (1836). In 1901 these colonies plus Western Australia federated to form the "Commonwealth of Australia".

New South Wales is known the world over for the picturesque harbour of its capital, Sydney, Australia's oldest and largest city and a centre of international finance. Sydney was the host city of the 2000 Olympic Summer Games.

An inhabitant of New South Wales is referred to as a New South Welshman or, in gender-free language, as a New South Welsh person, but this is rarely used. It is far more common to say "s/he's from New South Wales" than "s/he's a New South Welshman".

Timeline

Main article: History of New South Wales

• 1770: Captain James Cook discovers the east coast of New Holland (named after Holland), what later became known as New South Wales, Australia (named after South Wales).
• 1788: Captain Arthur Phillip establishes a British penal colony in Port Jackson, in what is now Sydney.
• 1813: William Wentworth, Gregory Blaxland and William Lawson, leads an expedition which finds a route across the Blue Mountains west of Sydney, opening up the grazing lands of inland New South Wales.

Geography

Main article: Geography of New South Wales

New South Wales' three main cities from north to south are Newcastle, Sydney, and Wollongong, which all lie along the coast. Notable towns include Albury, Broken Hill, Dubbo, Port Macquarie, Tamworth, Armidale, Inverell, Lismore, Nowra, Griffith, Queanbeyan, Leeton, Wagga Wagga, Goulburn and Coffs Harbour.

The state is bordered on the north by Queensland, on the west by South Australia, and on the south by Victoria. Its coast faces the Tasman Sea. New South Wales contains two Federal enclaves: the Australian Capital Territory (ACT), and the Jervis Bay Territory.

New South Wales can be divided physically into four sections:

• A thin coastal strip, with climates warming from cool temperate on the far south coast to subtropical near the Queensland border, including the regions south of Sydney such as the Illawarra , the Shoalhaven near Nowra, Newcastle, the Central Coast and the North Coast, North of The Hunter, as well as others.

• The mountainous areas of the Great Dividing Range and the high country surrounding them. Whilst not particularly steep, many peaks rise above 1000 m, with the highest Mount Kosciuszko at 2229 m (7308 ft). This includes the Southern Highlands, Central Tablelands and the New England regions.

• The agricultural plains that fill a significant portion of the state's area, with a much sparser population than the coast, includes the Riverina area around Wagga Wagga.

• The arid plains in the far north-west of the state, which are unsuitable for settlements of any notable size.

Highest maximum temperature: 50.0C (122.0F), Wilcannia, 11 January 1939

Lowest minimum temperature: -23.0C (-9.4F), Charlotte Pass, 29 June 1994 (lowest temperature recorded in whole of Australia) [1]

File:NSWhighways.png

New South Wales showing highways connecting towns and major centres

Government

Main article: Government of New South Wales

Main article: Constitution of New South Wales

The form of the Government of New South Wales is prescribed in its Constitution, which dates from 1856, although it has been amended many times since then. Since 1901 New South Wales has been a state of the Commonwealth of Australia, and the Australian Constitution regulates its relationship with the Commonwealth.

New South Wales is a Constitutional Monarchy. Queen Elizabeth II is the Sovereign, represented by the Governor of NSW. Those Members of Parliament able to command a majority in the Legislature are appointed by the Governor to the Ministry.

Under the Australian Constitution, New South Wales ceded certain legislative and judicial powers to the Commonwealth, but retained complete independence in all other areas. The New South Wales Constitution says: "The Legislature shall, subject to the provisions of the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act, have power to make laws for the peace, welfare, and good government of New South Wales in all cases whatsoever." In practice, however, the independence of the Australian states has been greatly eroded by the increasing financial domination of the Commonwealth.

The State Parliament is composed of two houses, the Legislative Assembly (lower house), and the Legislative Council (upper house). The head of the State Government is the Premier, currently Morris Iemma of the Labor Party.

Economy

New South Wales has a Gross Domestic Product of AU$265,966,000,000, which equalled AU$39,950 per capita, in 2003. This was equal to US$30,277, above most major European Union economies.

Another New South Wales

The Australian region was not the first piece of land to be called New South Wales. A map of North America printed in the 1780s gave the name New South Wales to a mostly unexplored area along the south shore of Hudson's Bay where the Canadian provinces of Manitoba and Ontario now lie.

External links

• NSW State Law
• Official state website
• New South Wales Parliament
• New South Wales Police
• Map of South East Australia from Geoscience Australia
• Sydney and NSW Weather

See also

• States and territories of Australia
• Cities of New South Wales
• Local Government Areas of New South Wales
• National Parks in New South Wales
• Stamps and postal history of New South Wales
• List of highways in New South Wales
• List of postcodes in New South Wales
• New South Wales Rural Fire Service
• Australian Bureau of Meteorology