Australia Immigration and Demographic Development

TERRITORY: HUMAN GEOGRAPHY. IMMIGRATION AND DEMOGRAPHIC DEVELOPMENT

The great immigration began in the mid-century. XIX with an annual rate of approx. 100,000 individuals, almost all from Great Britain. The mining exploitation, which began with the discovery of gold deposits, increased the immigration wave. By 1880 the population, almost entirely white, had risen to 2.2 million; the aborigines in the meantime had strongly diminished, following both the elimination by the whites and the diseases contracted by the newcomers. In 1900 the population was already 3.7 million, for the most part settled in New South Wales and Victoria: this dislocation around some large port centers was later at the origin of the division into several states. The immigration of Italians began rather late, with the demand for non-black labor; today they form the largest community, but those of Greeks, Dutch, Germans and Syrians are also relevant. Italians have traditionally settled in agricultural areas: in the sugar cane plantations of the north coast of Queensland, in the rural territories of southwestern Australia, especially near Perth, and in the territories with mixed economy, rural and urban, near Sydney and of Melbourne. Starting from the 1950s, this pattern changed and Italian labor was attracted to industrialization, giving employment in the heavy industries of the major metropolitan areas: in particular in Melbourne, where today more than a third of all Italian immigrants live. Australia. In the meantime, the contributions from the outside were added to those due to natural increase; the increase in population has also received a significant boost from the immigration wave that followed second World War, which sparked new economic developments in Australia, a country located in Oceania listed on zipcodesexplorer.

The population is thus made up essentially of whites (90.2%) while Asians (7.3%) and Aborigines (2.5%) represent the most important minorities. The demographic growth appears to have higher values ​​than the parameters of Western countries and the state incentives for families introduced in the early years of the century. XXI recorded an increase in the birth rate. The age pyramid, however, shows an increase in the intermediate and higher groups: about 20.4% of Australians are over 60 years old; this makes Australia the country with the oldest population on the continent. The annual increase is 7% (2013), partly due to the natural increase and partly to immigration; the latter, the engine of the birth of the country, is now subject to severe restrictive measures. Through the so-called “peaceful solution” in 2001 Australia also established an agreement with other Pacific countries (Nauru and Papua New Guinea) to regulate the flow of refugees. This agreement provides that the reception is ensured by these countries in refugee camps. This policy ended definitively in 2008 with the resettlement of asylum seekers present in the camps of Nauru and Papua New Guinea in other countries (Europe, New Zealand and Australia itself, second country in the world in 2006 chosen as the final destination of asylum seekers) and the simultaneous return of groups of refugees to their places of origin. It is estimated that, between 1996 and 2005, Australia received an average of 70,000 refugees a year, mostly from Serbia and Montenegro, then from Sudan, Iraq, Afghanistan, granting asylum to some in the same period. thousands of Asians, Chinese, Sinhalese and Indonesians. The population has a density of 3, 02 inhabitants / km², the lowest on the continent; the distribution is however very uneven, with very low concentrations in Northern Territory, where there is an average density of 0.2 inhab./km², and very high around the large urban centers: Brisbane, Sydney, Adelaide, Melbourne, ie in the large outer belt (the so-called “useful” A.) with a less arid climate. The most densely populated area is the territory of the federal capital, Canberra, with 162 inhabitants / km². Significant changes have also occurred in suburban cities with respect to the traditional center of gravity of the South-East. In the southeastern territory of Australia, two small megacities are coagulating. The first along the coasts of New South Wales; the central area is made up of Sydney, while two wings are represented by Newcastle, to the north, and Wollongong, to the south; between these two wings a dense web of intermediate centers is expanding along the coast. The second megalopolis is forming between Melbourne and Adelaide, along the roads and railways that connect the two cities and with branches along the coastal routes, between Port Phillip Bay (Port Philip Bay) and the Gulf of St Vincent. However, the interior is not lacking in resources: its penetration obviously proceeds slowly, also because the territorial organization occurs in the spontaneous function of the capitalist, non-dirigiste economy. In the interior there are mining areas and pioneer areas dedicated above all to breeding (large and organized ranches). Although in the external agricultural areas there are neither villages nor isolated farms, 89.4% of the population now lives in cities; among them the main ones are those of Sydney and Melbourne: Sydney, an American-style metropolis full of skyscrapers, is the largest port, financial and industrial center on which a whole series of other industrial cities gravitate. Melbourne, valued above all in the past, has a more conservative face, but it is a very active shopping center. Port centers are also Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth, the other major cities, and always on the coast, are Wollongong, Newcastle, Townsville, Rockhampton, etc., outlets for mining or agricultural areas. Hobart is important as the capital of Tasmania; Finally, Canberra is the welcoming federal capital.