Eastern states of Australia in the context of "Victoria (Australia)"

Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and numerous smaller islands. It has a total area of 7,688,287 km (2,968,464 sq mi), making it the sixth-largest country in the world and the largest in Oceania. Australia is the world's flattest and driest inhabited continent. It is a megadiverse country, and its size gives it a wide variety of landscapes and climates including deserts in the interior and tropical rainforests along the coast.

The ancestors of Aboriginal Australians began arriving from Southeast Asia 50,000 to 65,000 years ago, during the Last Glacial Period. By the time of British settlement, Aboriginal Australians spoke more than 250 distinct languages and had one of the oldest living cultures in the world. Australia's written history commenced with Dutch exploration of most of the coastline in the 17th century. British colonisation began in 1788 with the establishment of the penal colony of New South Wales. By the mid-19th century, most of the continent had been explored by European settlers and five additional self-governing British colonies were established, each gaining responsible government by 1890. The colonies federated in 1901, forming the Commonwealth of Australia. This continued a process of increasing autonomy from the United Kingdom, highlighted by the Statute of Westminster Adoption Act 1942, and culminating in the Australia Acts of 1986.

Western Australia (WA) is the westernmost state of Australia. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east, and South Australia to the south-east. Western Australia is Australia's largest state, with a land area of 2,527,013 square kilometres (975,685 sq mi), and is also the second-largest subdivision of any country on Earth.

Western Australia has a diverse range of climates, including tropical conditions in the Kimberley, deserts in the interior (including the Great Sandy Desert, Little Sandy Desert, Gibson Desert, and Great Victoria Desert) and a Mediterranean climate on the south-west and southern coastal areas. As of June 2024, the state has 2.965 million inhabitants—10.9 percent of the national total. Over 90 percent of the state's population live in the south-west corner and around 80 percent live in the state capital Perth, leaving the remainder of the state sparsely populated. The Trans-Australian Railway and the Eyre Highway traverse the Nullarbor Plain in the state's south-east, providing the principal connection between Western Australia and the population centres in the eastern states.

New South Wales (commonly abbreviated as NSW) is a state on the east coast of Australia. It borders Queensland to the north, Victoria to the south, and South Australia to the west. Its coast borders the Coral and Tasman Seas to the east. The Australian Capital Territory and Jervis Bay Territory are enclaves within the state. New South Wales' state capital is Sydney, which is also Australia's most populous city. In December 2024, the population of New South Wales was over 8.5 million, making it Australia's most populous state. Almost two-thirds of the state's population, 5.3 million, live in the Greater Sydney area.

The Colony of New South Wales was founded as a British penal colony in 1788. It originally comprised more than half of the Australian mainland with its western boundary set at 129th meridian east in 1825. The colony then also included the island territories of Van Diemen's Land, Lord Howe Island, and Norfolk Island. During the 19th century, most of the colony's area was detached to form separate British colonies that eventually became the various states and territories of Australia. The Swan River Colony (later called the Colony of Western Australia) was never administered as part of New South Wales.

The platypus (Ornithorhynchus anatinus), sometimes referred to as the duck-billed platypus, is a semiaquatic, egg-laying mammal endemic to eastern Australia, including Tasmania. The platypus is the sole living representative of its family Ornithorhynchidae and genus Ornithorhynchus, though a number of related species appear in the fossil record. Together with the four species of echidna, it is one of the five extant species of monotremes, mammals that lay eggs instead of giving birth to live young. Like other monotremes, the platypus has a sense of electrolocation, which it uses to detect prey in water while its eyes, ears and nostrils are closed. It is one of the few species of venomous mammals, as the male platypus has a spur on each hind foot that delivers an extremely painful venom.

The unusual appearance of this egg-laying, duck-billed, beaver-tailed mammal at first baffled European naturalists. In 1799, the first scientists to examine a preserved platypus body judged it a fake made of several animals sewn together. The unique features of the platypus make it important in the study of evolutionary biology, and a recognisable and iconic symbol of Australia. It is culturally significant to several Aboriginal peoples, who also used to hunt it for food, and has appeared on stamps and currency.

The rainbow lorikeet (Trichoglossus moluccanus) is a species of parrot found in Australia. It is common along the eastern seaboard, from northern Queensland to South Australia. Its habitat is rainforest, coastal bush and woodland areas. Six taxa traditionally listed as subspecies of the rainbow lorikeet are now treated as separate species (see Taxonomy).

Rainbow lorikeets have been introduced to Perth, Western Australia; Tasmania; Auckland, New Zealand; and Hong Kong.

Tiliqua rugosa, most commonly known as the shingleback skink, shingleback lizard, or bobtail lizard (often simply shingleback or bobtail); is a short-tailed, slow-moving species of blue-tongued skink (genus Tiliqua) endemic to Australia. Three of its four recognised subspecies are found in Western Australia, where the bobtail name is most frequently used. The fourth subspecies, T. rugosa asper, is the only one native to eastern Australia, where it goes by the common name of the eastern shingleback.

Apart from bobtail and shingleback, a variety of other common names are used in different states, including two-headed skink, stumpy lizard, stumpy-tailed lizard, pinecone lizard, bogeye or boggi, and less commonly: sleepy lizard. The Noongar Aboriginal people refer to T. rugosa as yoorn in their language.