Australian Capital Territory

I like reading about enclaves, and one that's long fascinated me is the Australian Capital Territory.

In the US, Washington and District of Columbia are really the same thing, ie Washington occupies the whole of the district. (Georgetown was once a separate city from Washington, but it joined the larger city in 1871.)

The ACT was formed on land ceded from New South Wales in 1911. The territory is 2,538 square kilometres in size. The city of Canberra takes up 805.6 kilometres of that space.

Canberra has the overhelming bulk of the territory's population - about 325,000. Outside the city, there are just a few small villages, such as Williamsdale, Naas, Uriarra, Tharwa and Hall. There is a lot of wilderness territory, including Namadgi National Park (which occupies about 46% of ACT's land area) and Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve.

The official site of the ACT government is here.

I hope I get there some day.

I'm fascinated by the place in part because we don't have a federal capital territory in Canada. (I'm not sure we need one. Having been in Ottawa and across the river in Gatineau just recently, I think things probably work pretty well the way it's structured now.)