Tasmania

Island in the Indian Ocean, southeast of Australia, separated from the mainland by Bass Strait; state of Australia; area about 68,000 sq km/26,000 sq mi; population (2001 est) 472,900. The capital is Hobart. Products include wool, dairy products, apples and other fruit, processed foods, timber, paper, iron, tungsten, copper, silver, coal, and cement. The University of Tasmania, established in 1890, now has campuses in both Hobart and Launceston.

History
The first European to visit Tasmania, on 24 November 1642, was Dutch navigator Abel Tasman, who named the island Van Diemen's Land, after the governor general of the Dutch East Indies, Anthony van Diemen. In 1777 Tasmania was visited by the English navigator Captain James Cook, who thought it formed part of the mainland. Lieutenant William Bligh planted English fruit trees at Adventure Bay, on the southeast coast of Bruny Island south of Hobart, on the outward voyage of the Bounty to Pitcairn Island in 1788. In 1798 British explorers George Bass and Matthew Flinders circumnavigated Tasmania, thereby proving it was an island.

19th century
In 1803 the British decided to establish a second colony in Australia (the first was Sydney Cove in 1788), and Governor Philip Gidley King of New South Wales sent Lieutenant David Bowen to settle with a group of convicts at Risdon Cove, on the River Derwent. Hobart Town was founded in 1804. The island was mainly used as a penal settlement: half of the total number of convicts sent to Australia were transported to Tasmania between 1803 and 1853. Conditions for prisoners were notoriously harsh, particularly at Port Arthur, a penal settlement on the south coast, founded in 1830 to house convicts who had committed serious crimes while imprisoned on the mainland or elsewhere on Van Diemen's Land. In 1825 the island, which had previously formed part of New South Wales, became a separate colony, and in 1856 the name of Van Diemen's Land was officially changed to Tasmania and responsible government granted. In 1901 Tasmania united with the states of the mainland in establishing the Commonwealth of Australia.