From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia This article is about the country. For the continent, see
Largest cities or towns in Australia
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- Religion in Australia
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Language Main article: Languages of Australia Although Australia has no official language, English has always been entrenched as the de facto national language.[2] Australian English is a major variety of the language with a distinctive accent and lexicon,[246] and differs slightly from other varieties of English in grammar and spelling.[247] General Australian serves as the standard dialect. According to the 2011 census, English is the only language spoken in the home for close to 81% of the population. The next most common languages spoken at home are Mandarin (1.7%), Italian (1.5%), Arabic (1.4%), Cantonese (1.3%), Greek (1.3%), and Vietnamese (1.2%);[232] a considerable proportion of first- and second-generation migrants are bilingual. A 2010–2011 study by the Australia Early Development Index found the most common language spoken by children after English was Arabic, followed by Vietnamese, Greek, Chinese, and Hindi.[248][249] Over 250 Indigenous Australian languages are thought to have existed at the time of first European contact, of which less than 20 are still in daily use by all age groups.[250][251] About 110 others are spoken exclusively by older people.[251] At the time of the 2006 census, 52,000 Indigenous Australians, representing 12% of the Indigenous population, reported that they spoke an Indigenous language at home.[252] Australia has a sign language known as Auslan, which is the main language of about 5,500 deaf people.[253] Religion Main article: Religion in Australia
Australia has no state religion; Section 116 of the Australian Constitution prohibits the federal government from making any law to establish any religion, impose any religious observance, or prohibit the free exercise of any religion.[254] In the 2011 census, 61.1% of Australians were counted as Christian, including 25.3% as Roman Catholic and 17.1% as Anglican; 22.3% of the population reported having "no religion"; 7.2% identify with non-Christian religions, the largest of these being Buddhism (2.5%), followed by Islam (2.2%), Hinduism (1.3%) andJudaism (0.5%). The remaining 9.4% of the population did not provide an adequate answer.[232] Before European settlement, the animist beliefs of Australia's indigenous people had been practised for many thousands of years. Mainland Aboriginal Australians' spirituality is known as the Dreamtime and it places a heavy emphasis on belonging to the land. The collection of stories that it contains shaped Aboriginal law and customs.Aboriginal art, story and dance continue to draw on these spiritual traditions. The spirituality and customs ofTorres Strait Islanders, who inhabit the islands between Australia and New Guinea, reflected their Melanesian origins and dependence on the sea. The 1996 Australian census counted more than 7000 respondents as followers of a traditional Aboriginal religion.[255] Since the arrival of the First Fleet of British ships in 1788, Christianity has grown to be the major religion practised in Australia. Christian churches have played an integral role in the development of education, health and welfare services in Australia. For much of Australian history the Church of England (now known as theAnglican Church of Australia) was the largest religious denomination. However, multicultural immigration has contributed to a decline in its relative position, and the Roman Catholic Church has benefitted from recent immigration to become the largest group. Similarly, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism and Judaism have all grown in Australia over the past half-century.[256] Australia has one of the lowest levels of religious adherence in the world.[257] It was reported in 2001 that only 7% of Australians attended church on a weekly basis.[258] Education Main article: Education in Australia Five Australian universities rank in the top 50 of the QS World University Rankings, including the Australian National University (19th).[259] School attendance, or registration for home schooling,[260] is compulsory throughout Australia. Education is the responsibility of the individual states and territories[261] so the rules vary between states, but in general children are required to attend school from the age of about 5 up until about 16.[262][263] In some states (e.g., Western Australia,[264] the Northern Territory[265] and New South Wales[266][267]), children aged 16–17 are required to either attend school or participate in vocational training, such as an apprenticeship. Australia has an adult literacy rate that was estimated to be 99% in 2003.[268] However, a 2011–12 report for the Australian Bureau of Statistics reported that Tasmania has a literacy and numeracy rate of only 50%.[269] In the Programme for International Student Assessment, Australia regularly scores among the top five of thirty major developed countries (member countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development). Catholic education accounts for the largest non-government sector. Australia has 37 government-funded universities and two private universities, as well as a number of other specialist institutions that provide approved courses at the higher education level.[270] The OECD places Australia among the most expensive nations to attend university.[271] There is a state-based system of vocational training, known as TAFE, and many trades conduct apprenticeships for training new tradespeople.[272] About 58% of Australians aged from 25 to 64 have vocational or tertiary qualifications,[222] and the tertiary graduation rate of 49% is the highest among OECD countries. The ratio of international to local students in tertiary education in Australia is the highest in the OECD countries.[273] In addition, 38 percent of Australia's population has a university or college degree, which is among the highest percentages in the world.[274][275] Health See also: Health care in Australia Australia has the third and seventh highest life expectancy of males and females respectively in the world.[276] Life expectancy in Australia in 2010 was 79.5 years for males and 84.0 years for females.[277] Australia has the highest rates of skin cancer in the world,[278] while cigarette smoking is the largest preventable cause of death and disease, responsible for 7.8% of the total mortality and disease. Ranked second in preventable causes is hypertension at 7.6%, with obesity third at 7.5%.[279][280] Australia ranks 35th in the world[281] and near the top of developed nations for its proportion of obese adults [282] and nearly two thirds (63%) of its adult population is either overweight or obese.[283] Total expenditure on health (including private sector spending) is around 9.8% of GDP.[284] Australia introduced universal health care in 1975.[285] Known asMedicare, it is now nominally funded by an income tax surcharge known as the Medicare levy, currently set at 1.5%.[286] The states manage hospitals and attached outpatient services, while the Commonwealth funds the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (subsidising the costs of medicines) and general practice.[285] Culture Main article: Culture of Australia The Royal Exhibition Building in Melbourne was the first building in Australia to be listed as a UNESCOWorld Heritage Site in 2004.[287] Since 1788, the basis of Australian culture has been strongly influenced by Anglo-Celtic Western culture.[288][289] Distinctive cultural features have also arisen from Australia's natural environment and Indigenous cultures.[290][291] Since the mid-20th century, American popular culture has strongly influenced Australia, particularly through television and cinema.[292] Other cultural influences come from neighbouring Asian countries, and through large-scale immigration from non-English-speaking nations.[292][293] Arts Main articles: Australian art, Australian literature, Theatre of Australia and Dance in Australia The rock art of Australia's Indigenous peoples is the oldest and richest in the world, dating as far back as 60,000 years and spread across hundreds of thousands of sites.[294] Traditional designs, patterns and stories infuse contemporary Indigenous Australian art, "the last great art movement of the 20th century";[295] its exponents include Emily Kame Kngwarreye.[296]During the first century of European settlement, colonial artists, trained in Europe, showed a fascination with the unfamiliar land.[297] The naturalistic, sun-filled works of Arthur Streeton, Tom Roberts and others associated with the 19th-century Heidelberg School—the first "distinctively Australian" movement in Western art—gave expression to a burgeoning Australian nationalism in the lead-up to Federation.[297] While the school remained influential into the new century, modernists such as Margaret Preston, and, later, Sidney Nolan and Arthur Boyd, explored new artistic trends.[297] The landscape remained a central subject matter for Fred Williams, Brett Whiteley and other post-World War II artists whose works, eclectic in style yet uniquely Australian, moved between thefigurative and the abstract.[297][298] The National Gallery of Australia and state galleries maintain collections of Australian and international art.[299] Australia has one of the world's highest attendances of art galleries and museums per head of population.[300] Sidney Nolan's Snake mural (1970), held at the Museum of Old and New Artin Hobart, Tasmania, is inspired by the Aboriginal creation myth of the Rainbow Serpent, as well as desert flowers in bloom after a drought.[301] Australian literature grew slowly in the decades following European settlement though Indigenous oral traditions, many of which have since been recorded in writing, are much older.[302] Writers of the 19th-century Bulletin School, such as Henry Lawson and Banjo Paterson, captured the experience of the bush using a distinctive Australian vocabulary. Their works are still very popular; Paterson's bush poem "Waltzing Matilda" (1895) is regarded as Australia's unofficial national anthem.[303]Miles Franklin is the namesake of Australia's most prestigious literary prize, awarded annually to the best novel about Australian life.[304] Its first recipient, Patrick White, went on to win the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1973.[305] Australian winners of the Man Booker Prize include Peter Carey, Thomas Keneally and Richard Flanagan.[306] Author David Malouf, playwrightDavid Williamson and poet Les Murray are also renowned literary figures.[307][308] Many of Australia's performing arts companies receive funding through the federal government's Australia Council.[309] There is a symphony orchestra in each state,[310] and a national opera company, Opera Australia,[311] well known for its famoussoprano Joan Sutherland.[312] At the beginning of the 20th century, Nellie Melba was one of the world's leading opera singers.[313] Ballet and dance are represented by The Australian Ballet and various state companies. Each state has a publicly funded theatre company.[314] Media Main articles: Cinema of Australia, Television in Australia, Media of Australia and Music of Australia Actor playing the bushranger Ned Kelly in The Story of the Kelly Gang(1906), the world's first feature film The Story of the Kelly Gang (1906), the world's first feature length film, spurred a boom in Australian cinema during the silent film era.[315] After World War I, Hollywood monopolised the industry,[316] and by the 1960s Australian film production had effectively ceased.[317] With the benefit of government support, the Australian New Wave of the 1970s brought provocative and successful films, many exploring themes of national identity, such as Wake in Fright and Gallipoli,[318] while "Crocodile" Dundee and the Ozploitation movement's Mad Max series became international blockbusters.[319] In a film market flooded with foreign content, Australian films delivered a 7.7% share of the local box office in 2015.[320] The AACTAs are Australia's premier film and television awards, and notable Academy Award winners from Australia include Geoffrey Rush, Nicole Kidman, Cate Blanchett and Heath Ledger.[321] Australia has two public broadcasters (the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and the multicultural Special Broadcasting Service), three commercial television networks, several pay-TV services,[322] and numerous public, non-profit television and radio stations. Each major city has at least one daily newspaper,[322] and there are two national daily newspapers, The Australian and The Australian Financial Review.[322] In 2010, Reporters Without Borders placed Australia 18th on a list of 178 countries ranked by press freedom, behind New Zealand (8th) but ahead of the United Kingdom (19th) and United States (20th).[323] This relatively low ranking is primarily because of the limited diversity of commercial media ownership in Australia;[324] most print media are under the control of News Corporation and Fairfax Media.[325] Cuisine Main article: Australian cuisine Most Indigenous Australian tribal groups subsisted on a simple hunter-gatherer diet of native fauna and flora, otherwise called bush tucker.[326][327] The first settlers introduced British food to the continent, much of which is now considered typical Australian food, such as the Sunday roast.[328][329] Multicultural immigration transformed Australian cuisine; post-World War II European migrants, particularly from the Mediterranean, helped to build a thriving Australian coffee culture, and the influence of Asian cultures has led to Australian variants of their staple foods, such as the Chinese-inspired dim sim and Chiko Roll.[330] Vegemite, pavlova,lamingtons and meat pies are regarded as iconic Australian foods.[331] Australian wine is produced mainly in the southern, cooler parts of the country. Sport and recreation Main article: Sport in Australia The Melbourne Cricket Ground is strongly associated with the history and development of cricket and Australian rules football, Australia's two most popular spectator sports.[332] About 24% of Australians over the age of 15 regularly participate in organised sporting activities.[222] At an international level, Australia has excelled at cricket, field hockey, netball, rugby league and rugby union.[333] The majority of Australians live within the coastal zone, making the beach a popular recreation spot and an integral part of the nation's identity.[334] Australia is a powerhouse in water-based sports, such as swimming and surfing.[335] The surf lifesaving movement originated in Australia, and the volunteer lifesaver is one of the country's icons.[336] Nationally, other popular sports include Australian rules football, horse racing, basketball, surfing, soccer, and motor racing. The annual Melbourne Cup horse race and theSydney to Hobart yacht race attract intense interest.[337] Australia is one of five nations to have participated in every Summer Olympics of the modern era,[338] and has hosted the Games twice: 1956 in Melbourne and 2000 in Sydney.[339] Australia has also participated in every Commonwealth Games,[340]hosting the event in 1938, 1962, 1982, 2006 and will host the 2018 Commonwealth Games.[341] Australia made its inaugural appearance at the Pacific Games in 2015. As well as being a regular FIFA World Cup participant, Australia has won the OFC Nations Cup four times and the AFC Asian Cup once – the only country to have won championships in two different FIFA confederations.[342] The country regularly competes among the world elite basketball teams as it is among the global top three teams in terms of qualifications to the Basketball Tournament at the Summer Olympics. Other major international events held in Australia include the Australian Open tennis grand slam tournament, international cricket matches, and the Australian Formula One Grand Prix. The highest-rating television programs include sports telecasts such as the Summer Olympics, FIFA World Cup, The Ashes, Rugby League State of Origin, and the grand finals of the National Rugby League andAustralian Football League.[343] Skiing in Australia began in the 1860s and snow sports take place in the Australian Alps and parts of Tasmania. See also Yüklə 0,59 Mb. Dostları ilə paylaş:
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