Australia in the context of "Cook Islanders"

A jury is a sworn body of people (jurors) convened to hear evidence, make findings of fact, and render an impartial verdict officially submitted to them by a court, or to set a penalty or judgment. Most trial juries are "petit juries", and consist of up to 15 people. A larger jury known as a grand jury has been used to investigate potential crimes and render indictments against suspects, and consists of between 16 and 23 jurors.

The jury system developed in England during the Middle Ages and is a hallmark of the English common law system. Juries are commonly used in countries whose legal systems derive from the British Empire, such as the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Australia, and Ireland. They are not used in most other countries, whose legal systems are based upon European civil law or Islamic sharia law, although their use has been spreading. Instead, typically guilt is determined by a single person, usually a professional judge. Civil law systems that do not use juries may use lay judges instead.

The natural environment or natural world encompasses all biotic and abiotic things occurring naturally, meaning in this case not artificial. The term is most often applied to Earth or some parts of Earth. This environment encompasses the interaction of all living species, climate, weather and natural resources that affect human survival and economic activity.The concept of the natural environment can be distinguished as components:

• Complete ecological units that function as natural systems without massive civilized human intervention, including all vegetation, microorganisms, soil, rocks, plateaus, mountains, the atmosphere and natural phenomena that occur within their boundaries and their nature.
• Universal natural resources and physical phenomena that lack clear-cut boundaries, such as air, water and climate, as well as energy, radiation, electric charge and magnetism, not originating from civilized human actions.

In contrast to the natural environment is the built environment. Built environments are where humans have fundamentally transformed landscapes such as urban settings and agricultural land conversion, the natural environment is greatly changed into a simplified human environment. Even acts which seem less extreme, such as building a mud hut or a photovoltaic system in the desert, the modified environment becomes an artificial one. Though many animals build things to provide a better environment for themselves, they are not human, hence beaver dams and the works of mound-building termites are thought of as natural.

An island country, island state, or island nation is a country whose primary territory consists of one or more islands or parts of islands. Approximately 25% of all independent countries are island countries. Island countries are historically more stable than many continental states but are vulnerable to conquest by naval superpowers. Indonesia is the largest and most populated island country in the world (and the fourth most populated country overall).

There are great variations between island country economies: they may rely mainly on extractive industries, such as mining, fishing and agriculture, and/or on services such as transit hubs, tourism, and financial services. Many islands have low-lying geographies and their economies and population centers develop along coast plains and ports; such states may be vulnerable to the effects of climate change, especially sea level rise.

In local government, a city hall, town hall, civic centre (in the UK or Australia), guildhall, or municipal hall (in the Philippines) is the chief administrative building of a city, town, or other municipality. It usually houses the city or town council and at least some other arms of the local government. It also often functions as the office of the mayor (or other executive), if the relevant municipality has such an officer. In large cities, the local government is often administratively expansive, and the city hall may bear more resemblance to a municipal capitol building.

By convention, until the middle of the 19th century, a single large open chamber (or "hall") formed an integral part of the building housing the council and such other organs of government as supported it. The hall may be used for council meetings and other significant events. This large chamber, the "town hall" (and its later variant "city hall") became synonymous with the whole building, and, synecdochically, the municipal government headquartered there. The terms "council chambers", "municipal building" or variants may be used locally in preference to "town hall" if no such large hall is present within the building.

Turks (Turkish: Türkler), or Turkish people, are the largest Turkic ethnic group, comprising the majority of the population of Turkey and Northern Cyprus. They generally speak the various Turkish dialects. In addition, centuries-old ethnic Turkish communities still exist across other former territories of the Ottoman Empire. Article 66 of the Constitution of Turkey defines a Turk as anyone who is a citizen of the Turkish state. While the legal use of the term Turkish as it pertains to a citizen of Turkey is different from the term's ethnic definition, the majority of the Turkish population (an estimated 70 to 75 percent) are of Turkish ethnicity. The vast majority of Turks are Sunni Muslims, with a notable minority practicing Alevism.

The ethnic Turks can therefore be distinguished by a number of cultural and regional variants, but do not function as separate ethnic groups. In particular, the culture of the Anatolian Turks in Asia Minor has underlain and influenced the Turkish nationalist ideology. Other Turkish groups include the Rumelian Turks (also referred to as Balkan Turks) historically located in the Balkans; Turkish Cypriots on the island of Cyprus, Meskhetian Turks originally based in Meskheti, Georgia; and ethnic Turkish people across the Middle East, where they are also called Turkmen or Turkoman in the Levant (e.g. Iraqi Turkmen, Syrian Turkmen, Lebanese Turkmen, etc.). Consequently, the Turks form the largest minority group in Bulgaria, the second largest minority group in Iraq, Libya, North Macedonia, and Syria, and the third largest minority group in Kosovo. They also form substantial communities in the Western Thrace region of Greece, the Dobruja region of Romania, the Akkar region in Lebanon, as well as minority groups in other post-Ottoman Balkan and Middle Eastern countries. The mass immigration of Turks also led to them forming the largest ethnic minority group in Austria, Denmark, Germany, and the Netherlands. There are also Turkish communities in other parts of Europe as well as in North America, Australia and the Post-Soviet states. Turks are the 13th largest ethnic group in the world.

Oceania (UK: /ˌoʊsiˈɑːniə, ˌoʊʃi-, -ˈeɪn-/ OH-s(h)ee-AH-nee-ə, -⁠AY-, US: /ˌoʊʃiˈæniə, -ˈɑːn-/ OH-shee-A(H)N-ee-ə) is a geographical region including Australasia, Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. Outside of the English-speaking world, Oceania is generally considered a continent, while Mainland Australia is regarded as its continental landmass. Spanning the Eastern and Western hemispheres, at the centre of the water hemisphere, Oceania is estimated to have a land area of about 9,000,000 square kilometres (3,500,000 sq mi) and a population of around 46.3 million as of 2024. Oceania is the smallest continent in land area and the second-least populated after Antarctica.

Oceania has a diverse mix of economies from the highly developed and globally competitive financial markets of Australia, French Polynesia, Hawaii, New Caledonia, and New Zealand, which rank high in quality of life and Human Development Index, to the much less developed economies of Kiribati, Papua New Guinea, Tuvalu, Vanuatu, and Western New Guinea. The largest and most populous country in Oceania is Australia, and the largest city is Sydney. Puncak Jaya in Indonesia is the highest peak in Oceania at 4,884 m (16,024 ft).

The continent of Australia, sometimes known in technical contexts as Sahul (/səˈhuːl/), Australia-New Guinea, Australinea, or Meganesia to distinguish it from the country of Australia, is located within the Southern and Eastern hemispheres, near the Maritime Southeast Asia. The continent includes mainland Australia, Tasmania, the island of New Guinea (Papua New Guinea and Western New Guinea), the Aru Islands, the Ashmore and Cartier Islands, most of the Coral Sea Islands, and some other nearby islands. Situated in the geographical region of Oceania, more specifically in the subregion of Australasia, Australia is the smallest of the seven traditional continents.

The continent includes a continental shelf overlain by shallow seas which divide it into several landmasses—the Arafura Sea and Torres Strait between mainland Australia and New Guinea, and Bass Strait between mainland Australia and Tasmania. When sea levels were lower during the Pleistocene ice age, including the Last Glacial Maximum about 18,000 BC, they were connected by dry land into the combined landmass of Sahul. The name "Sahul" derives from the Sahul Shelf, which is a part of the continental shelf of the Australian continent. During the past 18,000 to 10,000 years, rising sea levels overflowed the lowlands and separated the continent into today's low-lying arid to semi-arid mainland and the two mountainous islands of New Guinea and Tasmania. With a total land area of 8.56 million square kilometres (3,310,000 sq mi), the Australian continent is the smallest, lowest, flattest, and second-driest continent (after Antarctica) on Earth. As the country of Australia is mostly on a single landmass, and comprises most of the continent, it is sometimes informally referred to as an island continent, surrounded by oceans.

Australasia is a subregion of Oceania, comprising Australia, New Zealand (overlapping with Polynesia), and sometimes New Guinea and surrounding islands (overlapping with Melanesia). The term is used in a number of different contexts, including geopolitically, physiogeographically, philologically, and ecologically, where the term covers several slightly different but related regions.

A township is a form of human settlement or administrative subdivision. Its exact definition varies among countries.

Although the term is occasionally associated with an urban area, this tends to be an exception to the rule. In Australia, Canada, Scotland, and parts of the United States, the term refers to settlements too small or scattered to be considered urban.