The Australian continent includes New Guinea, joined to it by land in the Ice Age
The continent of Australia is not just the country. It also takes in Tasmania and the whole of New Guinea, all sitting on one continental shelf. Around 18,000 BC they formed a single dry landmass called Sahul, reached by some of the earliest humans to leave Africa.
To avoid confusion with the nation, scientists call the continent Sahul, Australia–New Guinea, Australinea or Meganesia. It comprises mainland Australia, Tasmania, New Guinea, which is split between Papua New Guinea and Indonesia's Western New Guinea, plus the Aru Islands and other nearby specks. Shallow seas now divide it: the Arafura Sea and Torres Strait separate Australia from New Guinea, and Bass Strait cuts off Tasmania. At about 8.56 million square kilometres it is the smallest of the seven traditional continents, and also the lowest, the flattest and, after Antarctica, the driest.
During the last glacial maximum around 18,000 BC, low seas exposed land bridges joining everything into Sahul, a name borrowed from the Sahul Shelf. Between roughly 18,000 and 10,000 years ago the ocean rose and flooded the lowlands, leaving an arid mainland and two mountainous islands. The labels have shifted too: archaeologists said Australasia before the 1970s, Greater Australia in the early 1970s, Sahul after a 1975 conference, Meganesia from 1984, and Richard Dawkins coined Australinea in 2004.
People arrived early. Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islanders left Africa for Asia around 70,000 years ago and reached Australia at least 50,000 years ago, possibly as early as 65,000, and research suggests hundreds crossed deliberately on bamboo rafts. At Lake Mungo, a dry lake in New South Wales, remains point to one of the oldest known cremations, early evidence of ritual, and Aboriginal art forms the oldest continuing artistic tradition on Earth. Papuans settled New Guinea between 42,000 and 48,000 years ago, possibly living in highlands up to 2,000 m, and the Srivijaya and Majapahit empires later traded with and ruled parts of its western fringe.
The modern contrasts are stark. Papua New Guinea ranks among the most culturally and linguistically diverse countries, with only 18% of people in towns, and West Papua holds an estimated 44 uncontacted groups, while Australia is heavily urban with the world's 12th-largest economy. Whether the continent is Australia or Oceania depends on where you learned geography: many Latin American and European countries teach Oceania, while the UN has used Oceania as a major division since 1947.
Source: Australia (continent)
