Katana VentraIP

Total population

People first migrated to Australia at least 65,000 years ago, and over time formed as many as 500 language-based groups.[3] They have a broadly shared, complex genetic history, but only in the last 200 years were they defined by others as, and started to self-identify as, a single group. Aboriginal identity has changed over time and place, with family lineage, self-identification, and community acceptance all of varying importance.


Aboriginal Australians have a wide variety of cultural practices and beliefs that make up the oldest continuous cultures in the world.[4][5] At the time of European colonisation of Australia, the Aboriginal people consisted of complex cultural societies with more than 250 languages[6] and varying degrees of technology and settlements.


Languages (or dialects) and language-associated groups of people are connected with stretches of territory known as "Country", with which they have a profound spiritual connection. Over the millennia, Aboriginal people developed complex trade networks, inter-cultural relationships, law and religions.[3][7]


Contemporary Aboriginal beliefs are a complex mixture, varying by region and individual across the continent.[8] They are shaped by traditional beliefs, the disruption of colonisation, religions brought to the continent by Europeans, and contemporary issues.[8][9][10] Traditional cultural beliefs are passed down and shared through dancing, stories, songlines, and art that collectively weave an ontology of modern daily life and ancient creation known as Dreaming.


In the past, Aboriginal people lived over large sections of the continental shelf. They were isolated on many of the smaller offshore islands and Tasmania when the land was inundated at the start of the Holocene inter-glacial period, about 11,700 years ago. Despite this, Aboriginal people maintained extensive networks within the continent and certain groups maintained relationships with Torres Strait Islanders and the Makassar people of modern-day Indonesia. Studies of Aboriginal groups' genetic makeup are ongoing, but evidence suggests that they have genetic inheritance from ancient Asian but not more modern peoples. They share some similarities with Papuans, but have been isolated from Southeast Asia for a very long time.


In the 2021 census, Indigenous Australians comprised 3.8% of Australia's population.[1]


Most Aboriginal people today speak English and live in cities. Some may use Aboriginal phrases and words in Australian Aboriginal English (which also has a tangible influence of Aboriginal languages in the phonology and grammatical structure). Many but not all also speak the various traditional languages of their clans and peoples.


Aboriginal people, along with Torres Strait Islander people, have a number of severe health and economic deprivations in comparison with the wider Australian community.

factors – births, deaths and migration[note 4] – accounted for 43.5% of the increase (71,086 people). In turn, 76.2% of that increase was attributed to people aged 0–19 years in 2021, broken down as 52.5% for 0–4 year olds (births since 2016) and 23.7% for 5–19 year olds.[52]

Demographic

Non-demographic factors, which are complex to quantify, include persons identifying as Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander in a particular census, and changes in census coverage and response – such as persons completing a census form in 2021 but not in 2016. These factors accounted for 56.5% of the increase in the Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander population (92,471 people). The increase was higher than observed between 2011–2016 (39.0%) and 2006–2011 (38.7%).

[52]

Aboriginal people have lived for tens of thousands of years on the continent of Australia, through its various changes in landmass. The area within Australia's borders today includes the islands of Tasmania, K'gari (previously Fraser Island), Hinchinbrook Island,[47] the Tiwi Islands, Kangaroo Island and Groote Eylandt. Indigenous people of the Torres Strait Islands, however, are not Aboriginal.[48][49][50][51]


In the 2021 census, people who self-identified on the census form as being of Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander origin totalled 812,728 out of a total of 25,422,788 Australians, equating to 3.2% of Australia's population[53] and an increase of 163,557 people, or 25.2%, since the previous census in 2016.[52] Reasons for the increase were broadly as follows:

in northern South Australia, and neighbouring parts of Western Australia and Northern Territory

Anangu

Goorie (variant pronunciation and spelling of Koori) in South East Queensland and some parts of northern New South Wales

(or Koorie) in New South Wales and Victoria (Aboriginal Victorians)

Koori

in Central and Northern Queensland, sometimes referring to all Aboriginal Queenslanders

Murri

in southern South Australia

Nunga

in southern Western Australia

Noongar

(or Pallawah) in Tasmania

Palawah

on Tiwi Islands off Arnhem Land (NT)

Tiwi

. Creative Spirits. 24 December 2018.

"Start exploring Australian Aboriginal culture"

. AIATSIS.

"Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies"

. AIATSIS.

"Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies"

. ARTARK. Retrieved 28 August 2023.

"Aboriginal Art of Australia: Understanding its History"

Media related to Aboriginal Australians at Wikimedia Commons