[21] The Aboriginal population is estimated to have been between 3,000 and 7,000 at the time of British settlement, but was almost wiped out within 30 years during a period of conflicts with settlers known as the "Black War" and the spread of infectious diseases.

[35] They engaged in fire-stick farming, hunted game including kangaroo and wallabies, caught seals, mutton-birds, shellfish and fish and lived as nine separate "nations" on the island, which they knew as "Trouwunna".

[36][38] Several months later, a second settlement was established by Captain David Collins, with 308 convicts, 5 kilometres (3.1 miles) to the south in Sullivans Cove on the western side of the Derwent, where fresh water was more plentiful.

Left on their own without further supplies, the Sullivans Cove settlement suffered severe food shortages and by 1806 its inhabitants were starving, with many resorting to scraping seaweed off rocks and scavenging washed-up whale blubber from the shore to survive.

[41][42][43] Explorer and naval officer John Oxley in 1810 noted the "many atrocious cruelties" inflicted on Aboriginal people by convict bushrangers in the north, which in turn led to black attacks on solitary white hunters.

Over the summer of 1826–1827 clans from the Big River, Oyster Bay and North Midlands nations speared stock-keepers on farms and made it clear that they wanted the settlers and their sheep and cattle to move from their kangaroo hunting grounds.

[52][53] In November 1830, Arthur organised the so-called "Black Line", ordering every able-bodied male colonist to assemble at one of seven designated places in the Settled Districts to join a massive drive to sweep Aboriginal people out of the region and on to the Tasman Peninsula.

[54] After hostilities between settlers and Aboriginal peoples ceased in 1832, almost all of the remnants of the Indigenous population were persuaded by government agent George Augustus Robinson to move to Flinders Island.

The near-destruction of Tasmania's Aboriginal population has been described as an act of genocide by historians including Robert Hughes, James Boyce, Lyndall Ryan and Tom Lawson.

[36][57][58] However, other historians including Henry Reynolds, Richard Broome and Nicholas Clements do not agree with the genocide thesis, arguing that the colonial authorities did not intend to destroy the Aboriginal population in whole or in part.

"[61] Nevertheless, Clements and Flood note that there was another wave of violence in north-west Tasmania in 1841, involving attacks on settlers' huts by a band of Aboriginal Tasmanians who had not been removed from the island.

It raised a local defence force that eventually played a significant role in the Second Boer War in South Africa, and Tasmanian soldiers in that conflict won the first two Victoria Crosses awarded to Australians.

[76] Tasmania, the largest island of Australia, has a landmass of 68,401 km2 (26,410 sq mi) and is located directly in the pathway of the notorious "Roaring Forties" wind that encircles the globe.

Areas at equivalent latitudes in the Northern Hemisphere include Hokkaido in Japan, Northeast China (Manchuria), Central Italy, and United States cities such as New York and Chicago.

The Tarkine, containing Savage River National Park located in the island's far north west, is the largest temperate rainforest area in Australia covering about 3,800 square kilometres (1,500 sq mi).

The presence of these mountain ranges is a primary factor in the rain shadow effect, where the western half receives the majority of rainfall, which also influences the types of vegetation that can grow.

On the West Coast Range and partially on Mount Field, Australia's only winter-deciduous plant, deciduous beech is found, which forms a carpet or krummholz, or very rarely a 4-metre tree.

At Flinders' recommendation, the Governor of New South Wales, John Hunter, in 1800 named the stretch of water between the mainland and Van Diemen's Land "Bass's Straits".

Tasmania has extremely diverse vegetation, from the heavily grazed grassland of the dry Midlands to the tall evergreen eucalypt forest, alpine heathlands and large areas of cool temperate rainforests and moorlands in the rest of the state.

There are also many berries such as snowberry (Gaultheria hispida), fruits such as heartberry (Aristotelia peduncularis), and vegetables such as river mint (Mentha australis), though no crops like maize that are used for large production.

[121] Controversy surrounds the decision in 2014 by the Abbott federal Liberal government to request the area's delisting and opening for resource exploration (before it was rejected by the UN Committee at Doha),[122] and the current mining and deforestation in the state's Tarkine region, the largest single temperate rainforest in Australia.

The House of Assembly Select Committee in 2020 recommended in its report that the number should be increased again from 25 to 35, arguing that such a small representation would undermine democracy and limit the capabilities of the government.

[148] Other major employers include Nyrstar, Norske Skog, Grange Resources, Rio Tinto,[149] the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Hobart, and Federal Group.

[162] Notable titles by Tasmanian authors include The Museum of Modern Love[163][164] by Heather Rose, The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan, The Alphabet of Light and Dark by Danielle Wood, The Roving Party by Rohan Wilson and The Year of Living Dangerously by Christopher Koch, The Rain Queen[165] by Katherine Scholes, Bridget Crack[166] by Rachel Leary, and The Blue Day Book by Bradley Trevor Greive.

Children's books include They Found a Cave by Nan Chauncy, The Museum of Thieves by Lian Tanner, Finding Serendipity, A Week Without Tuesday and Blueberry Pancakes Forever[167] by Angelica Banks, Tiger Tale by Marion and Steve Isham.

[179] Films set in Tasmania include Young Einstein, The Tale of Ruby Rose, The Hunter, The Last Confession of Alexander Pearce, Arctic Blast, Manganinnie (with music composed by Peter Sculthorpe), Van Diemen's Land, Lion, and The Nightingale.

Seafood has always been a significant part of the Tasmanian diet, including its wide range of shellfish, which are still commercially farmed[182] such as crayfish, orange roughy, salmon[182] and oysters.

[193] In other parts of the world, Tasmania is considered as the opposite side of the planet to most places, and supposedly home to mythically exotic animals, such as the Tasmanian Devil as popularised by Warner Brothers.

The most commonly cited sarcastic comment is on the supposedly 'two-headed' Tasmanians, which originated due to some colonists developing goitres from the low amount of iodine in the island's soil.

During this period of European settlement, Tasmania was the second centre of power (and a significant port of the British Empire) on the continent after New South Wales, before being surpassed in the latter half of the 19th century by Victoria and regions sustained by mining booms following the cessation of transportation in 1853.