Hobart

Sister cities

• Barile
• Brest
• L'Aquila
• Yaizu
• Valdivia
• Fuzhou

History

The first European settlement began in 1803 as a military camp at Risdon Cove on the eastern shores of the River Derwent, amid British concerns over the presence of French explorers. It was the site of the 1804 Risdon Cove massacre. Later that year, along with the military, settlers and convicts from the abandoned Port Phillip settlement, the camp at Risdon Cove was moved by Captain David Collins to a better location at the present site of Hobart at Sullivans Cove. The area's Indigenous inhabitants were members of the semi-nomadic Mouheneener tribe. Violent conflict with the European settlers, and the effects of diseases brought by them, dramatically reduced the Aboriginal population, which was rapidly replaced by free settlers and the convict population. In 1832, four years after martial law had been declared, 26 people, including Tongerlongeter (Tukalunginta) and Montpelliatta (Muntipiliyata) of the combined Big River and Oyster Bay nations, surrendered to G. A. Robinson's "friendly mission" and were marched into Hobart to negotiate a truce with Governor George Arthur. They were forcibly exiled ten days later to Flinders Island. 's 1834 painting Mount Wellington and Hobart Town from Kangaroo Point depicts Aboriginal Tasmanians dancing in the foreground. By this stage however, Aboriginal people had been forcibly exiled from the area following the Black War.]] Charles Darwin visited Hobart Town in February 1836 as part of the Beagle expedition. He compares it to Sydney and compliments the "noble forest". He writes of Hobart and the Derwent estuary in The Voyage of the Beagle:"...The lower parts of the hills which skirt the bay are cleared; and the bright yellow fields of corn, and dark green ones of potatoes, appear very luxuriant... I was chiefly struck with the…

Geography

Hobart is located on the estuary of the River Derwent in the state's south-east. It is built predominantly on Jurassic dolerite around the foothills interspersed with smaller areas of Triassic siltstone and Permian mudstone, straddling the River Derwent. The Western Shore extends from the Derwent Valley in the northwest through the flatter areas around Glenorchy (which rests on older Triassic sediment) bounded by peaks averaging around (including Mount Wellington, Mount Hull, Mount Faulkner and Mount Dromedary). The hilly inner areas rest on the younger Jurassic dolerite deposits, before stretching into the lower areas such as the beaches of Sandy Bay in the south, while the City and Kingston are separated by Tolmans Hill and Taroona's Alum Cliffs. The Derwent estuary exits into Storm Bay wrapped by the South Arm Peninsula, Iron Pot and Betsey Island, with Turrakana and Bruny Island beyond. The Eastern Shore also extends from the Derwent in a southeasterly direction hugging the Meehan Range (which hovers around with distinctive summits such as Mount Direction, Flagstaff Hill and Gunners Quoin towards the irregular valleys of Brighton) before sprawling into flatter land in suburbs such as Bellerive. These flatter areas of the eastern shore rest on far younger Quaternary deposits. From there the city wraps around the estuary to peninsulas and extends across the hills in an easterly direction into the valley area of Rokeby, before reaching into the tidal flatland area of Lauderdale (between Ralphs Bay and Frederick Henry Bay). Hobart has access to a number of beach areas including those in the Derwent estuary itself: Long Beach, Nutgrove Beach, Bellerive Beach, Cornelian Bay, Kingston, and Howrah Beaches, as well as many more in Frederick Henry Bay such as Seven…

Most-observed species

• Forest Raven

  Corvus tasmanicus Mathews, 1912 · Aves
  20,069
• Superb Fairywren

  Malurus cyaneus (Ellis, 1782) · Aves
  13,031
• Masked Lapwing

  Vanellus miles (Boddaert, 1783) · Aves
  12,955
• Kelp Gull

  Larus dominicanus M.H.K.Lichtenstein, 1823 · Aves
  12,405
• Eurasian Blackbird

  Turdus merula Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  12,346
• Gray Fantail

  Rhipidura albiscapa Gould, 1840 · Aves
  11,682
• Yellow-throated Honeyeater

  Nesoptilotis flavicollis (Vieillot, 1817) · Aves
  11,332
• Brown Thornbill

  Acanthiza pusilla (Shaw, 1790) · Aves
  11,151

Most recent

• M 4.7 — 2002-06-15
  46 km NNE of Bagdad, Australia