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Arnhem Land is one of the five regions of the Northern Territory of Australia. It is located in the north-eastern corner of the territory and is around from the territory capital Darwin. The region has an area of which also covers the area of Kakadu National Park, and a population of 16,230. In 1623 Dutch East India Company captain William van Colster sailed into the Gulf of Carpentaria and Cape Arnhem is named after his ship, the Arnhem, which itself was named after the city of Arnhem in the Netherlands. The area covers about 34,000 square kilometres and has an estimated population of 16,000, of whom 12,000 are Yolngu, the traditional owners. The region’s service hub is Nhulunbuy, 600km east of Darwin, set up in the 1960s as a mining town (bauxite). Other major population centres are Yirrkala (just outside Nhulunbuy), Gunbalanya (formerly Oenpelli), Ramingining and Maningrida. A substantial proportion of the population, which is mostly Aboriginal, lives on small outstations, but government support for these small settlements is fading. This Outstation movement started in the early 1980s. Many Aboriginal groups moved to usually very small settlements on their traditional lands, often to escape the problems (alcohol, petrol-sniffing, idleness) on the larger townships. In 2013-14, the entire region contributed around $1.3 billion or 7% to the Northern Territory’s Gross State Product, mainly through bauxite mining. == History == Arnhem Land has been occupied by indigenous people for tens of thousands of years and is the location of the oldest-known stone axe, which scholars believe to be 35,500 years old.〔()〕 The Gove Peninsula was heavily involved in the defence of Australia during World War II. At least since the 18th century (and probably earlier) Muslim traders from Makassar (now Indonesia) visited Arnhem Land each year to trade, harvest and process sea cucumbers or "trepang". This sea slug is highly prized in Chinese cuisine, for folk medicine and as an aphrodisiac. This Macassan contact with Australia is the first recorded example of interaction between the inhabitants of the Australian continent and their Asian neighbours. This contact had a major effect on local indigenous Australians. The Makassans exchanged goods such as cloth, tobacco, knives, rice and alcohol for the right to trepang coastal waters and employ local labour. Makassar pidgin became a ''lingua franca'' along the north coast among several indigenous Australian groups who were brought into greater contact with each other by the seafaring Makassan culture.〔 These traders from the southwest corner of Sulawesi also introduced the word "balanda" for white people, long before western explorers set foot on the coasts of northern Australia. In Arnhem Land the word "balanda" is still widely used today to refer to white Australians. The Dutch started settling in Sulawesi Island in the early 17th century. Archeological remains of Makassar contact, including trepang processing plants (drying, smoking) from the 18th and 19th centuries, are still found at Australian locations such as Port Essington and Groote Eylandt. The Makassans also planted tamarind trees (native to Madagascar and East Africa).〔 After processing the sea slugs were traded by the Makassans to Southern China. In 2014 an 18th-century Chinese coin was found in the remote area of Wessel Islands off the coast on a beach on Elcho Island during a historical expedition. The coin was found near previously known Macassan trepanger fishing sites (sea cucumber fishing) where several other Dutch coins have been discovered nearby but never a Chinese coin. The coin was probably made in Beijing around 1735. 〔(【引用サイトリンク】Australian Geographic">url=http://www.australiangeographic.com.au/news/2014/08/18th-century-chinese-coin-found-in-arnhem-land )〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Arnhem Land」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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