Portal:Australian Capital Territory/Selected article/9
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The History of the Australian Capital Territory as a Territory of Australia began after the Federation of Australia in 1901, when it was created in law as the site for Australia's capital city Canberra. The region has a long prior history of human habitation before the Territory's creation, however, with evidence of Indigenous Australian settlement dating back at least 21,000 years. The region formed the traditional lands associated with the Ngunnawal people and several other linguistic groups, an association known through both early European settler accounts and the oral histories of the peoples themselves. Following the colonisation of Australia by the British, the 19th century saw the initial European exploration and settlement of the area and their encounters with the local indigenous peoples, beginning with the first explorations in 1820 and shortly followed by the first European settlements in 1824. At the outset the region was dominated by large properties used for sheep and cattle grazing, which had been granted to free settlers that had arrived in Australia from the United Kingdom and other European countries. These large properties would later be broken up and subdivided in accordance with changes to land tenure arrangements, smaller farms and urban developments becoming more common.
In the early 20th century, the development of the region took an unusual turn when it was chosen as the site for the creation of Australia's capital city in 1908. The Territory was formally ceded to the Government of Australia by the Government of New South Wales in 1909 and additional land at Jervis Bay was also surrendered to the Commonwealth for the establishment of a sea port for the capital. It officially came under government control as the Federal Capital Territory on January 1, 1911. The planning and construction of Canberra followed, with the Parliament of Australia finally moving there in 1927. The Territory officially became the Australian Capital Territory in 1938. The city of Canberra developed and expanded to accommodate the Australian federal government, while the surrounding area has been developed to support the city, including the construction of dams, the establishment of plantation forests and the creation of protected areas. The political development of the Territory began in 1949, when it was given its first representative in the Parliament of Australia, and was completed when it became an autonomous territory when self-government was granted in 1988.
