Is Australia part of the UK?
Australia shares a monarch with the UK, but it is an independent country. Australia is not part of the UK and never has been.
The links between Australia and the UK are pretty close. So close, in fact, that some people believe Australia must be a part of the UK.
This is not the case. In fact, Australia has never been part of the UK. Neither has Australia ever been a colony of the UK – something that may surprise a few readers.
Was Australia ever part of the UK?
Australia was never part of the UK for a couple of reasons. The first is that British colonies have always had a separate status. They’re not integral parts of the country, and the same applies to British Overseas Territories such as the Cayman Islands today. While Reunion and French Guiana are integral parts of France, overseas territories such as Anguilla and the Falkland Islands are not integral parts of the UK. They exist in a strange Not Quite zone, like Puerto Rico does with the US.
British colonies in Australia
But Australia was never a colony of the UK in the first place. British settlement of the Australian continent started in 1788, when the First Fleet arrived. The colony was called New South Wales, and over time, five more colonies were set up – Tasmania, Queensland, Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia.
These colonies eventually became the six states of Australia. But Australia as an official entity was only born when the six states federated in 1901, and Australia became independent from the UK.
The name Australia has been around for a lot longer, and explorer Matthew Flinders popularised it as the name of the continent.
Australia and the Commonwealth
To confuse matters somewhat, Australia is part of the Commonwealth of Nations. The Commonwealth is essentially the remnants of the British Empire, and the head of the Commonwealth is Queen Elizabeth II – the British queen.
The British queen is also the monarch of Australia, and the country’s head of state. But that doesn’t mean the UK has power over Australia, or that Australia is part of the UK.
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