Map - Macquarie Island (Macquarie Island)

Macquarie Island (Macquarie Island)
Macquarie Island is an island in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, about halfway between New Zealand and Antarctica. Regionally part of Oceania and politically a part of Tasmania, Australia, since 1900, it became a Tasmanian State Reserve in 1978 and was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1997.

It was a part of Esperance Municipality until 1993, when the municipality was merged with other municipalities to form Huon Valley Council. The island is home to the entire royal penguin population during their annual nesting season. Ecologically, the island is part of the Antipodes Subantarctic Islands tundra ecoregion.

Since 1948, the Australian Antarctic Division (AAD) has maintained a permanent base, the Macquarie Island Station, on the isthmus at the northern end of the island at the foot of Wireless Hill. The population of the base, constituting the island's only human inhabitants, usually varies from 20 to 40 people over the year. A heliport is located nearby.

Frederick Hasselborough, an Australian, discovered the uninhabited island on 11 July 1810, while looking for new sealing grounds. He claimed Macquarie Island for Britain and annexed it to the colony of New South Wales in 1810. The island was named for Colonel Lachlan Macquarie, Governor of New South Wales from 1810 to 1821. Hasselborough reported a wreck "of ancient design", which has given rise to speculation that the island may have been visited before by Polynesians or others. In the same year, Captain Smith described in more detail what is presumably the same wreck: "several pieces of wreck of a large vessel on this Island, apparently very old and high up in the grass, probably the remains of the ship of the unfortunate De la Perouse".

Between 1810 and 1919, seals and then penguins were hunted for their oil almost to the point of extinction. Sealers' relics include iron try pots, casks, hut ruins, graves and inscriptions. During that time, 144 vessel visits are recorded, 12 of which ended in shipwreck. The conditions on the island and the surrounding seas were considered so harsh that a plan to use it as a penal settlement was rejected.

Richard Siddins and his crew were shipwrecked in Hasselborough Bay on 11 June 1812. Joseph Underwood sent the ship Elizabeth and Mary to the island to rescue the remaining crew. The Russian explorer Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen explored the area for Alexander I of Russia in 1820, and produced the first map of Macquarie Island. Bellingshausen landed on the island on 28 November 1820, defined its geographical position and traded his rum and food for the island's fauna with the sealers.

In 1877, the crew of the schooner Bencleugh was shipwrecked on the island for four months; folklore says they came to believe there was hidden treasure on the island. The ship's owner, John Sen Inches Thomson, wrote a book on his sea travels, including his time on the island. The book, written in 1912, was entitled Voyages and Wanderings In Far-off Seas and Lands.

The island was included as a part of the colony of Van Diemens Land in 1825. New Zealand requested in 1889 that Macquarie Island be transferred to it Tasmania to close a loophole in New Zealand's closed sealing season, as New Zealand vessels were poaching on sub-Antarctic islands south of New Zealand, but claiming they got the seal skins from Macquarie Island. Between 1902 and 1920, the Tasmanian Government leased the island to Joseph Hatch (1837–1928) for his oil industry based on harvesting penguins.

Between 1911 and 1914, the island became a base for the Australasian Antarctic Expedition under Sir Douglas Mawson. George Ainsworth operated a meteorological station between 1911 and 1913, followed by Harold Power from 1913 to 1914, and by Arthur Tulloch from 1914 until the station was shut down in 1915.

In 1933, the authorities declared the island a wildlife sanctuary under the Tasmanian Animals and Birds Protection Act 1928 and, in 1972, it was made a State Reserve under the Tasmanian National Parks and Wildlife Act 1970. On 25 May 1948, the Australian National Antarctic Research Expeditions (ANARE) established its expedition headquarters on Macquarie Island. 
Map - Macquarie Island (Macquarie Island)
Map
Openstreetmap - Map - Macquarie Island
Openstreetmap
Map - Macquarie Island - Esri.WorldImagery
Esri.WorldImagery
Map - Macquarie Island - Esri.WorldStreetMap
Esri.WorldStreetMap
Map - Macquarie Island - OpenStreetMap.Mapnik
OpenStreetMap.Mapnik
Map - Macquarie Island - OpenStreetMap.HOT
OpenStreetMap.HOT
Map - Macquarie Island - CartoDB.Positron
CartoDB.Positron
Map - Macquarie Island - CartoDB.Voyager
CartoDB.Voyager
Map - Macquarie Island - OpenMapSurfer.Roads
OpenMapSurfer.Roads
Map - Macquarie Island - Esri.WorldTopoMap
Esri.WorldTopoMap
Map - Macquarie Island - Stamen.TonerLite
Stamen.TonerLite
Country - Australia
Flag of Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. With an area of 7617930 km2, Australia is the largest country by area in Oceania and the world's sixth-largest country. Australia is the oldest, flattest, and driest inhabited continent, with the least fertile soils. It is a megadiverse country, and its size gives it a wide variety of landscapes and climates, with deserts in the centre, tropical rainforests in the north-east, and mountain ranges in the south-east.

The ancestors of Aboriginal Australians began arriving from south east Asia approximately 65,000 years ago, during the last ice age. Arriving by sea, they settled the continent and had formed approximately 250 distinct language groups by the time of European settlement, maintaining some of the longest known continuing artistic and religious traditions in the world. Australia's written history commenced with the European maritime exploration of Australia. The Dutch navigator Willem Janszoon was the first known European to reach Australia, in 1606. In 1770, the British explorer James Cook mapped and claimed the east coast of Australia for Great Britain, and the First Fleet of British ships arrived at Sydney in 1788 to establish the penal colony of New South Wales. The European population grew in subsequent decades, and by the end of the 1850s gold rush, most of the continent had been explored by European settlers and an additional five self-governing British colonies established. Democratic parliaments were gradually established through the 19th century, culminating with a vote for the federation of the six colonies and foundation of the Commonwealth of Australia on 1 January 1901. Australia has since maintained a stable liberal democratic political system and wealthy market economy.
Map - AustraliaAustralia_relief_map.jpg
Australia_relief_map...
1336x1200
freemapviewer.org
Map - AustraliaAustralia_Present_Vegetation_Map.png
Australia_Present_Ve...
2228x1988
freemapviewer.org
Map - AustraliaTopography_of_australia.jpg
Topography_of_austra...
5200x4858
freemapviewer.org
Map - AustraliaAustralia_satellite_plane.jpg
Australia_satellite_...
5250x4320
freemapviewer.org
Map - Australiaaustralia.jpg
australia.jpg
1033x1138
freemapviewer.org
Currency / Language  
ISO Currency Symbol Significant figures
AUD Australian dollar $ 2
ISO Language
EN English language
Neighbourhood - Country