Australian Geography and Nature

Geography And Nature

326 practice questions, each with the answer and an explanation.

All 326 questions

  1. Complete the sentence about Clare Valley with the correct year: The first European to reportedly explore the Clare Valley was John Hill, who did so in early April ______, visiting and naming the Hutt…
  2. Complete the sentence about Clare Valley with the correct year: Eyre in turn informed John Horrocks, who had only arrived in South Australia during March ______.
  3. Complete the sentence about Clare Valley with the correct year: Eyre later explored the Clare Valley on the return journey from his second ______ expedition to the northern regions of South Australia.
  4. Complete the sentence about Clare Valley with the correct year: On 16 February ______, the Clare Valley was affected by the Ash Wednesday bushfires.
  5. Complete the sentence about New South Wales with the correct year: As of September ______, the population of New South Wales was over 8.6 million, making it Australia's most populous state.
  6. Complete the sentence about New South Wales with the correct year: The Colony of New South Wales was founded as a British penal colony in ______.
  7. Complete the sentence about Victoria with the correct year: In ______ James Cook claimed the east coast of the Australian continent for the Kingdom of Great Britain.
  8. Complete the sentence about Victoria with the correct year: The first European settlement in the area occurred in ______ at Sullivan Bay.
  9. Complete the sentence about Victoria with the correct year: Much of Victoria was included in ______ in the Port Phillip District of New South Wales.
  10. Complete the sentence about Queensland with the correct year: Dutch navigator Willem Janszoon, the first European to land in Australia, explored the west coast of the Cape York Peninsula in ______.
  11. Complete the sentence about Queensland with the correct year: In ______, James Cook claimed the east coast of Australia for the Kingdom of Great Britain.
  12. Complete the sentence about Queensland with the correct year: In ______, Arthur Phillip founded the colony of New South Wales, which included all of what is now Queensland.
  13. Complete the sentence about Queensland with the correct year: Queensland was explored in subsequent decades, and the Moreton Bay Penal Settlement was established at Brisbane in ______ by John Oxley.
  14. Complete the sentence about Western Australia with the correct year: Dutch explorers visited Western Australia from the 17th century, with Dirk Hartog's ______ expedition the first Europeans to make l…
  15. Complete the sentence about South Australia with the correct year: Colonial government commenced on 28 December ______, when the members of the council were sworn in near the Old Gum Tree.
  16. Complete the sentence about South Australia with the correct year: The South Australian Company established a temporary settlement at Kingscote, Kangaroo Island, on 26 July ______, five months before…
  17. Complete the sentence about Australian Capital Territory with the correct year: On 1 January ______, the self-governing Australian colonies federated to form the Commonwealth of Australia.
  18. Complete the sentence about Jervis Bay Territory with the correct year: The Yuin people have a continuing connection to the Jervis Bay area and in December ______, applied for recognition of their nat…
  19. Complete the sentence about Jervis Bay Territory with the correct year: In August ______, the British convict transport ship Atlantic of the Third Fleet entered the bay and Lieutenant Richard Bowen na…
  20. Complete the sentence about Jervis Bay Territory with the correct year: In November ______, the Matilda, under Master Matthew Weatherhead, entered the bay to undertake repairs.
  21. Complete the sentence about Jervis Bay Territory with the correct year: Survivors of the Sydney Cove shipwreck in ______ reached the area by foot, heading to Port Jackson.
  22. Complete the sentence about Jervis Bay Territory with the correct year: John Oxley, an English explorer and surveyor, travelled from Sydney by sea to explore the bay in ______.
  23. Complete the sentence about Jervis Bay Territory with the correct year: In ______, jurisdiction over the Jervis Bay Territory was transferred from the state of New South Wales to the federal Commonwea…
  24. Complete the sentence about States and territories of Australia with the correct year: The states originated as separate British colonies prior to Federation in ______.
  25. Complete the sentence about States and territories of Australia with the correct year: The Ashmore and Cartier Islands were accepted by Australia in ______ and were administered as part of the Norther…
  26. Complete the sentence about Australian bushfires with the correct year: Bushfires have killed approximately 800 people in Australia since ______, and billions of animals.
  27. Complete the sentence about Australian bushfires with the correct year: Abel Janszoon Tasman's expedition saw smoke drifting over the coast of Tasmania in ______ and noted blackened trunks and baked e…
  28. Complete the sentence about Australian bushfires with the correct year: While charting the east coast in ______, Captain Cook's crew saw autumn fires in the bush burning on most days of the voyage.
  29. Complete the sentence about Black Summer with the correct year: Black Summer is a comic book limited series written by Warren Ellis, illustrated by Juan Jose Ryp, and published by American company Ava…
  30. Complete the sentence about Black Saturday bushfires with the correct year: The February fires commenced on a day when several localities across the state, including Melbourne, recorded their highest…
  31. Complete the sentence about Ash Wednesday bushfires with the correct year: The Ash Wednesday bushfires, known in South Australia as Ash Wednesday II, were a series of bushfires that occurred in south…
  32. Complete the sentence about Ash Wednesday bushfires with the correct year: The fires were the deadliest in Australian history until the Black Saturday bushfires in ______.
  33. Complete the sentence about Ash Wednesday bushfires with the correct year: A ______ report found Ash Wednesday to be one of Australia's worst fires.
  34. Complete the sentence about Cyclone Tracy with the correct year: Severe Tropical Cyclone Tracy was a small but destructive tropical cyclone that devastated the city of Darwin, in the Northern Territor…
  35. Complete the sentence about Millennium drought with the correct year: By October ______, part of the upper Darling River system had collapsed and the Condamine River had reverted to a series of ponds.
  36. Complete the sentence about Millennium drought with the correct year: From July to August ______ the drought was further influenced by a strong El Niño weather pattern associated with high temperature…
  37. Complete the sentence about Great Artesian Basin with the correct year: European discovery of the basin dates from ______ when a shallow bore near Bourke produced flowing water.
  38. Complete the sentence about Snowy Mountains Scheme with the correct year: The legislation created the Snowy Mountains Hydroelectric Authority to manage to scheme in ______.
  39. Complete the sentence about Snowy Mountains with the correct year: Since the last resident left in ______, Kiandra has become a ghost town of ruins and abandoned diggings.
  40. Complete the sentence about Snowy Mountains with the correct year: The Kosciuszko National Park came into existence as the National Chase Snowy Mountains on 5 December ______.
  41. Complete the sentence about Thredbo with the correct year: In ______, the syndicate was granted a head-lease over the area that Thredbo now occupies.
  42. Complete the sentence about Koala with the correct year: Botanist Robert Brown wrote the first detailed scientific description in ______ although his work remained unpublished for 180 years.
  43. Complete the sentence about Emu with the correct year: The Tasmanian, Kangaroo Island and King Island subspecies became extinct after the European settlement of Australia in ______.
  44. Complete the sentence about Emu with the correct year: Emus were first reported as having been seen by Europeans when explorers visited the western coast of Australia in ______.
  45. Complete the sentence about Emu with the correct year: The birds were known on the eastern coast before ______, when the first Europeans settled there.
  46. Complete the sentence about Emu with the correct year: The species was named by ornithologist John Latham in ______ based on a specimen from the Sydney area of Australia, a country which was known as…
  47. Complete the sentence about Emu with the correct year: In his original ______ description of the emu, the French ornithologist Louis Pierre Vieillot used two generic names, first Dromiceius and later…
  48. Complete the sentence about Emu with the correct year: An alternate classification was proposed in ______ by Mitchell et al., based on analysis of mitochondrial DNA.
  49. Complete the sentence about Wombat with the correct year: In ______, the production of cube-shaped wombat feces was the subject of the Ig Nobel Prize for Physics, won by Patricia Yang and David Hu.
  50. Complete the sentence about Tasmanian devil with the correct year: The size of a small dog, the Tasmanian devil became the largest carnivorous marsupial in the world following the extinction of the th…
  51. Complete the sentence about Dingo with the correct year: The first British colonists to arrive in Australia in ______ established a settlement at Port Jackson and noted "dingoes" living with Indigenou…
  52. Complete the sentence about Dingo with the correct year: Dogs associated with indigenous people were first recorded by Jan Carstenszoon in the Cape York Peninsula area in ______.
  53. Complete the sentence about Dingo with the correct year: In ______, based on Phillip's brief description and illustration, the "Dog of New South Wales" was classified by Friedrich Meyer as Canis dingo…
  54. Complete the sentence about Kookaburra with the correct year: The genus Dacelo was introduced by English zoologist William Elford Leach in ______.
  55. Complete the sentence about Kookaburra with the correct year: A molecular study published in ______ found that the genus Dacelo, as then defined, was paraphyletic.
  56. Complete the sentence about Cassowary with the correct year: The genus Casuarius was erected by French scientist Mathurin Jacques Brisson in his Ornithologie published in ______.
  57. Complete the sentence about Saltwater crocodile with the correct year: Crocodilus porosus was the scientific name proposed by Johann Gottlob Theaenus Schneider who described a zoological specimen in _…
  58. Complete the sentence about Saltwater crocodile with the correct year: Hall's New Guinea crocodile placement suggested in ______ study by Sales-Oliveira et al.
  59. Complete the sentence about Saltwater crocodile with the correct year: The largest confirmed saltwater crocodile on record drowned in a fishing net in Papua New Guinea, in ______.
  60. Complete the sentence about Thorny devil with the correct year: The thorny devil was first described by the biologist John Edward Gray in ______.
  61. Complete the sentence about Frilled lizard with the correct year: British zoologist John Edward Gray described the frilled lizard in ______ as Clamydosaurus kingii.
  62. Complete the sentence about Red kangaroo with the correct year: In ______, Gould reassigned the species to the genus Osphranter, a taxon later submerged as a subgenus of Macropus.
  63. Complete the sentence about Quokka with the correct year: In ______, Dutch mariner Samuel Volckertszoon wrote of sighting "a wild cat" on the island.
  64. Complete the sentence about Quokka with the correct year: In ______, Dutch explorer Willem de Vlamingh mistook them for giant rats, and renamed the Wadjemup Island 't Eylandt 't Rottenest, which means…
  65. Complete the sentence about Lyrebird with the correct year: The classification of lyrebirds was the subject of much debate after the first specimens reached European scientists after ______.
  66. Complete the sentence about Galah with the correct year: The galah has been introduced to Tasmania through anthropogenic means and no sightings were made prior to ______.
  67. Complete the sentence about Redback spider with the correct year: Swedish arachnologist Tamerlan Thorell described the redback spider in ______ from specimens collected in Rockhampton and Bowen in cen…
  68. Complete the sentence about Sydney funnel-web spider with the correct year: Octavius Pickard-Cambridge was the first to describe the Sydney funnel-web spider, from a female specimen housed in the Brit…
  69. Complete the sentence about Sydney funnel-web spider with the correct year: In February ______, a young boy was bitten on the hand while playing with a large, black spider at his home in the Sydney su…
  70. Complete the sentence about Inland taipan with the correct year: The inland taipan was first described scientifically in ______, when two specimens were collected at the junction of the Murray and Dar…
  71. Complete the sentence about Inland taipan with the correct year: In ______ a third specimen was collected near Bourke, New South Wales, and William John Macleay described it as Diemenia ferox, believi…
  72. Complete the sentence about Inland taipan with the correct year: In ______, Covacevich and Wombey argued that Parademansia microlepidotus was sufficiently distinct to warrant generic recognition, a vi…
  73. Complete the sentence about Eucalyptus with the correct year: The type specimen was collected in ______ by David Nelson, the gardener-botanist on Cook's third voyage.
  74. Complete the sentence about Golden wattle with the correct year: Explorer Thomas Mitchell collected the type specimen, from which George Bentham wrote the species description in ______.
  75. Complete the sentence about Golden wattle with the correct year: A. pycnantha was made the official floral emblem of Australia in ______, and has been featured on the country's postal stamps.
  76. Complete the sentence about Golden wattle with the correct year: Acacia pycnantha was first formally described by botanist George Bentham in the London Journal of Botany in ______.
  77. Complete the sentence about Golden wattle with the correct year: Carl Meissner described A. falcinella from material from Port Lincoln in ______.
  78. Complete the sentence about Golden wattle with the correct year: In ______ Joseph Maiden described Acacia westonii from the northern and western slopes of Mount Jerrabomberra near Queanbeyan in New So…
  79. Complete the sentence about Waratah with the correct year: The genus was first described by Robert Brown in ______ from the type species Telopea speciosissima.
  80. Complete the sentence about Kangaroo paw with the correct year: The genus Anigozanthos' author was French botanist Jacques-Julien Houtou de Labillardière, who first collected the kangaroo paw in _____…
  81. Complete the sentence about Kangaroo paw with the correct year: The red and green kangaroo paw was adopted as the state emblem of Western Australia in a proclamation on 9 October ______.
  82. Complete the sentence about Kangaroo paw with the correct year: The red and green kangaroo paw was again included on a stamp on 10 July ______, which were six-cent stamps in a series of state floral e…
  83. Complete the sentence about Kangaroo paw with the correct year: In ______, disease was found on the kangaroo paw plant in Okinawa.
  84. Complete the sentence about Kangaroo paw with the correct year: In ______ Kings Park Botanic and Garden Board started a breeding program to protect the Kangaroo Paw from disease and the impact of clim…
  85. Complete the sentence about Boab with the correct year: The ______ book Useful Native Plants of Australia states that "The dry acidulous pulp of the fruit is eaten.
  86. Complete the sentence about Boab with the correct year: Gija Jumulu is a large boab which was transported from Warmun in the Kimberley region to Kings Park in the Western Australian capital city, Pert…
  87. Which place completes this sentence about Melbourne? After the federation of Australia in 1901, Melbourne served as the interim seat of government of the new nation until ______ became the permanent c…
  88. Which place completes the sentence? Geologically, the area is located in the central-eastern part of the ______ Basin.
  89. Which place completes this sentence about Newcastle, New South Wales? In June 1796, a group of fishermen from the British convict outpost at ______, were driven by bad weather into a harbour at what i…
  90. Which place completes this sentence about Hobart? Founded in 1804 as a British penal colony, Hobart is Australia's second-oldest capital city after ______, New South Wales.
  91. Which place completes this sentence about Hobart? Charles ______ visited Hobart Town in February 1836 as part of the Beagle expedition.
  92. Which place completes this sentence about Toowoomba? Toowoomba is the second-most-populous inland city in Australia after the nation's capital, ______.
  93. Which place completes this sentence about Ballarat? Ballarat subsequently became a thriving boomtown that for a time rivalled ______, the capital of Victoria, in terms of wealth and cultural influence…
  94. Which place completes this sentence about Launceston, Tasmania? Launceston is the second most populous city in Tasmania after the state capital, ______.
  95. Which place completes this sentence about Bunbury, Western Australia? Further economic growth was fuelled by completion of the South Western Railway in 1893, which linked Bunbury with ______.
  96. Which place completes this sentence about Alice Springs? Central Australia's first hospital, ______ House, was built in 1926 when the European population of the town was about 40.
  97. Which place completes this sentence about Sydney Opera House? Located on the foreshore of ______ Harbour, it is widely regarded as one of the world's most famous and distinctive buildings, and a maste…
  98. Which place completes this sentence about Sydney Harbour Bridge? The stonemasons cut, dressed, and numbered the blocks, which were then transported to ______ on three ships built specifically for this…
  99. Which place completes this sentence about Kimberley? During the 18th century, Dutch explorers named the region of Kimberley and nearby ______ variations of Van Diemen's Land after the VOC governor-gen…
  100. Which place completes this sentence about Swan River? The river runs through the centre of ______, Western Australia's capital and largest city.

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