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Christmas Island

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Asian Countries;
Countries; Geography of Oceania (Australasia)

               Territory of Christmas Island

   Flag of Christmas Island

   Flag
   Anthem: Advance Australia Fair
   Royal anthem: God Save the Queen
   Location of Christmas Island
   Capital
   (and largest city) Flying Fish Cove ("The Settlement")
   Official languages English ( de facto)
   Government         Constitutional monarchy (federal)
    - Queen           Elizabeth II
    - Administrator   Neil Lucas
    - Shire President Gordon Thomson
                           Area
    - Total           135 km²
                      51.4 sq mi
    - Water (%)       0
                        Population
    - 2006 estimate   1,493 ( n/a)
    - Density         11.06/km² ( n/a)
                      n/a/sq mi
        Currency      Australian dollar ( AUD)
       Time zone      ( UTC+7)
      Internet TLD    .cx
      Calling code    ++61-891

   Coordinates: 10°30′00″S, 105°40′00″E The Territory of Christmas Island
   is a small, non self-governing Territory of Australia located in the
   Indian Ocean, 2,360 km (1,466 miles) northwest of Perth in Western
   Australia and 500 km (310 miles) south of Jakarta, Indonesia.

   It maintains about 1,600 residents who live in a number of towns on the
   northern tip of the island: Flying Fish Cove (The Settlement), Silver
   City, Kampong, Poon Saan, and Drumsite.

   It has a unique natural topography and is of immense interest to
   scientists and naturalists due to the number of species of endemic
   flora and fauna which have evolved in isolation and undisturbed by
   human habitation.

   While there has been mining activity on the island for many years, 65
   percent of its 135 square kilometres (52.1 sq. mi) are now National
   Park and there are large areas of pristine and ancient rainforest.

History

   Poon Saan in the evening
   Enlarge
   Poon Saan in the evening
   Poon Saan shops
   Enlarge
   Poon Saan shops

   For centuries, Christmas Island's isolation and rugged coasts provided
   natural barriers to settlement. British and Dutch navigators first
   included the island on their charts from the early seventeenth century,
   and Captain William Mynors of the East India Ship Company vessel, the
   Royal Mary, named the island when he arrived on Christmas Day, 25th
   December, 1643. The island first appears on a map produced by Pieter
   Goos and published in 1666. Goos had labelled the island Moni.

   The earliest recorded visit was in March 1688 by William Dampier of the
   British ship Cygnet, who found it uninhabited. An account of the visit
   can be found in Dampier's Voyages, which describes how, when trying to
   reach Cocos from New Holland, his ship was pulled off course in an
   easterly direction and after 28 days arrived at Christmas Island.
   Dampier landed at the Dales (on the West Coast) and two of his crewmen
   were the first recorded people to set foot on Christmas Island.

   The next visit was by Daniel Beekman, who described it in his 1718
   book, A Voyage to and from the Island of Borneo, in the East Indies.

   In 1771, the Indian vessel, the Pigot, attempted to find an anchorage
   but was unsuccessful; the crew reported seeing wild pigs and coconut
   palms. However, pigs have never been introduced to the island, so the
   Pigot may have found a different island.

   The first attempt at exploring the island was in 1857 by the crew of
   the Amethyst. They tried to reach the summit of the island, but found
   the cliffs impassable.

   During the 1872-76 Challenger expedition to Indonesia, naturalist Dr
   John Murray carried out extensive surveys. At his urging, the British
   Admiralty annexed the 135 square kilometre island on 6 June 1888. But
   it was not until 1888 that Christmas Island was settled, when the
   Clunies-Ross brothers from neighbouring Cocos-Keeling Islands (some 900
   kilometres to the south west) established a settlement at Flying Fish
   Cove to collect timber and supplies for the growing industry on Cocos.

   In 1887, Captain Maclear of HMS Flying Fish, having discovered an
   anchorage in a bay that he named Flying Fish Cove, landed a party and
   made a small but interesting collection of the flora and fauna. In the
   next year, Pelham Aldrich, on board HMS Egeria, visited it for ten
   days, accompanied by J. J. Lister, who gathered a larger biological and
   mineralogical collection.

   Among the rocks then obtained and submitted to Sir John Murray for
   examination were many of nearly pure phosphate of lime, a discovery
   which led to annexation of the island by the British Crown in June
   1888. Soon afterwards, a small settlement was established in Flying
   Fish Cove by G. Clunies Ross, the owner of the Keeling Islands, and
   phosphate mining began in the 1890s using indentured workers from
   Singapore, China, and Malaysia.

   The island was administered jointly by the British Phosphate
   Commissioners and District Officers from the United Kingdom Colonial
   Office through the Straits Settlements, and later the Crown Colony of
   Singapore. Japan invaded and occupied the island in 1942, as the Indian
   garrison mutinied, and interned the residents until the end of World
   War II in 1945. At Australia's request, the United Kingdom transferred
   sovereignty to Australia; in 1957, the Australian government paid the
   government of Singapore £2.9 million in compensation, a figure based
   mainly on an estimated value of the phosphate foregone by Singapore.

   The first Australian Official Representative arrived in 1958 and was
   replaced by an Administrator in 1968. Christmas Island and the Cocos
   (Keeling) Islands together are called the Australian Indian Ocean
   Territories and since 1997 share a single Administrator resident on
   Christmas Island.

   Since the late 1980s or early 1990s Christmas Island periodically
   received boatloads of refugees, mostly from Indonesia. These, and the
   occasional illegal fishing boat, were never a large issue, often
   welcomed by locals who looked forward to the exploding of the boats
   once the "boat people" had been processed . During 2001, Christmas
   Island received a large number of asylum seekers travelling by boat,
   most of them from the Middle East and intending to apply for asylum in
   Australia. The arrival of the Norwegian cargo vessel MV Tampa, which
   had rescued people from the sinking Indonesian fishing-boat Palapa in
   international waters nearby, precipitated a diplomatic standoff between
   Australia, Norway, and Indonesia. The vessel held 420 asylum seekers
   from Afghanistan, 13 from Sri Lanka, and five from Indonesia. In
   response to requests from the captain of the ship for Canberra to waive
   the Laws of the Sea and the Refugee Convention 1951, and have the
   refugees disembarked at Christmas Island, the Australia SAS boarded and
   took effective control. The standoff eventually led to the asylum
   seekers being redirected to Nauru for processing. Another boatload of
   asylum seekers was taken from Christmas Island to Papua New Guinea for
   processing, after it was claimed that many of the adult asylum seekers
   threw their children into the water, apparently in protest at being
   turned away. This was later proven to be false. Many of the refugees
   were accepted by New Zealand.

   John Howard, the Australian Prime Minister, later passed legislation
   through the Australian Parliament which excised Christmas Island from
   Australia's migration zone, meaning that asylum seekers arriving there
   could not automatically apply to the Australian government for refugee
   status, allowing the Australian navy to relocate them to other
   countries (Papua New Guinea's Manus Island, and Nauru) as part of the
   Pacific Solution. As of 2005, the Department of Immigration has begun
   construction of an "Immigration Reception and Processing Centre", due
   for completion in late 2006. The facility is estimated to cost $210
   million, and will contain 800 beds.

People

   As of July 2005, there are approximately 1600 Christmas Islanders. (The
   Australian Bureau of Statistics reports a population of 1508 as of the
   2001 Census.)

   The ethnic composition is 70% Chinese, 20% European and 10% Malay.
   Religions practiced on Christmas Island include Buddhism 36%, Islam
   25%, Christianity 18%, Taoism 15%, other 6%. English is the official
   language, but Chinese and Malay are also spoken.

Postage stamps

   Postage stamps and including first day cover albums have been issued by
   Christmas Island since 1958.

Government

   Christmas Island is a non-self governing territory of Australia,
   administered by the Australian Department of Transport and Regional
   Services. The legal system is under the authority of the Governor
   General of Australia and Australian law. An Administrator ( Neil Lucas,
   since 28 January 2006) appointed by the Governor-General of Australia
   represents the monarch and Australia.

   The Australian Government provides Commonwealth-level government
   services through the Christmas Island Administration and DOTARS (CI).

   There is no State Government; instead, state government type services
   are provided by contractors, including departments of the Western
   Australian Government, with the costs met by the Australian
   (Commonwealth) Government.

   A unicameral Shire of Christmas Island with 9 seats provides local
   government services and is elected by popular vote to serve four-year
   terms. Elections are held every two years, with half the members
   standing for election.

   Christmas Island residents who are Australian citizens also vote in
   Commonwealth (federal) elections. Christmas Island residents are
   represented in the House of Representatives through the Northern
   Territory electorate of Lingiari and in the Senate by Northern
   Territory Senators.

   In early 1986, the Christmas Island Assembly held a design competition
   for an island flag; the winning design was adopted as the informal flag
   of the territory for over a decade, and in 2002 it was made the
   official flag of Christmas Island.

Economy

   Phosphate mining had been the only significant economic activity, but
   in December 1987 the Australian Government closed the mine. In 1991,
   the mine was reopened by a consortium which included many of the former
   mine workers as shareholders. With the support of the government, a $34
   million casino opened in 1993. The casino closed in 1998 and has not
   re-opened. The Australian Government in 2001 agreed to support the
   creation of a commercial spaceport on the island, however this has not
   yet been constructed, and appears that it will not proceed in the
   future. The Australian Government built a temporary immigration
   detention centre on the island in 2001 and plans to replace it with a
   larger, modern facility, in 2006.

   Christmas Island has the top-level Internet DNS domain " .cx".

Geography

   Christmas Island
   Enlarge
   Christmas Island

   Located at 10°30′S 105°40′E, the island is a quadrilateral with
   hollowed sides, about 19  km (12 miles) in greatest length and 14.5 km
   (9 miles) in extreme breadth. The total land area is 135 km² (52.1
   square miles), with 138.9 km (86.3 miles) of coastline. The island is
   the flat summit of a submarine mountain more than 4,572  m (15,000
   feet) high, the depth of the platform from which it rises being about
   14,000 feet (4267 m) and its height above the sea being upwards of
   305 m (1,000 feet).

   The climate is tropical, with heat and humidity moderated by trade
   winds. Steep cliffs along much of the coast rise abruptly to a central
   plateau. Elevation ranges from sea level to 361 m (1,184 feet) at
   Murray Hill. The island is mainly tropical rainforest, of which 65% is
   National Park.

   The narrow fringing reef surrounding the island can be a maritime
   hazard.

   Christmas Island is 500 km south of Indonesia and about 2600 km north
   west of Perth.

Flora and fauna

   Christmas Island is of immense scientific value as it was uninhabited
   until the late nineteenth century, so many unique species of fauna and
   flora exist which have evolved independently of human interference.
   Among the best-known is the Christmas Island red crab, which numbered
   some 100 million on the island as of 2004. Two-thirds of the island has
   been declared a National Park which is managed by the Australian
   Department of Environment and Heritage through Parks Australia.

   The dense rainforest has evolved in the deep soils of the plateau and
   on the terraces. The forests are dominated by twenty-five tree species.
   Ferns, orchids and vines grow on the branches in the humid atmosphere
   beneath the canopy. The 135 plant species include sixteen which are
   only found on Christmas Island.
   Red Crab
   Enlarge
   Red Crab

   The annual red crab mass migration (around 100 million animals) to the
   sea to spawn is one of the wonders of the natural world and takes place
   each year around November; after the start of the wet season and in
   synchronisation with the cycle of the moon.

   The land crabs and sea birds are the most noticeable animals on the
   island. Twenty terrestrial and intertidal crabs (of which thirteen are
   regarded as true land crabs, only dependent on the ocean for larval
   development) have been described. Robber crabs, known elsewhere as
   coconut crabs, also exist in large numbers on the island.

   Christmas Island is a focal point for sea birds of various species.
   Eight species or subspecies of sea birds nest on the island. The most
   numerous is the Red-footed Booby that nests in colonies, in trees, on
   many parts of the shore terrace. The widespread Brown Booby nests on
   the ground near the edge of the seacliff and inland cliffs. Abbott's
   Booby (listed as endangered) nests on tall emergent trees of the
   western, northern and southern plateau rainforest. The Christmas Island
   forest is the only nesting habitat of the Abbott's Booby left in the
   world. The endemic Christmas Island Frigatebird (listed as endangered)
   has nesting areas on the north-eastern shore terraces and the more
   widespread. Great Frigatebirds nest in semi-deciduous trees on the
   shore terrace with the greatest concentrations being in the North West
   and South Point areas. The Common Noddy and two species of bosuns or
   tropicbirds with their brilliant gold or silver plumage and distinctive
   streamer tail feathers also nest on the island. Of the ten native land
   birds and shorebirds, seven are endemic species or subspecies. Some 76
   migrant bird species have been recorded.

Communications and transportation

   Telephone services are provided by Telstra and are a part of the
   Australian network with the same prefix as Western Australia (08). A
   GSM mobile telephone system replaced the old analogue network in
   February 2005. Four free-to-air television stations from Australia are
   broadcast (ABC, SBS, GWN and WIN) in the same time-zone as Perth. Radio
   broadcasts from Australia include ABC Radio National, ABC Regional
   radio and Red FM. All services are provided by satellite links from the
   mainland. Broadband internet became available to subscribers in urban
   areas in mid 2005 through the local internet service provider, CIIA
   (formerly dotCX).

   A container port exists at Flying Fish Cove with an alternative
   container unloading point to the south of the island at Norris Point
   for use during the December to March 'swell season" of seasonal rough
   seas. There are two weekly flights into Christmas Island Airport from
   Perth, Western Australia (via RAAF Learmonth) operated by National Jet
   Systems on Mondays and Thursdays and a charter flight operated by Silk
   Air on Thursday.

   A bus service on the island runs frequently from Flying Fish Cove to
   the new recreation centre at Phosphate Hill. There is also a taxi
   service. The road network covers most of the island and is generally
   good quality, although four wheel drive vehicles are needed to access
   some more distant parts of the rain forest or the more isolated
   beaches.

Trivia

     * The fictitious Sonic the Hedgehog was born on Christmas Island.

   Retrieved from " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_Island"
   This reference article is mainly selected from the English Wikipedia
   with only minor checks and changes (see www.wikipedia.org for details
   of authors and sources) and is available under the GNU Free
   Documentation License. See also our Disclaimer.
