The Islands
The Torres Strait Islands lie to the north of Tropical Queensland's Cape York Peninsula and comprise 274 small islands, of which 17 are inhabited, located in Torres Strait which separates Australia and Papua New Guinea (PNG). Each island community elects a member to the Torres Strait Regional Authority.
Thursday Island (Waiben) and Horn Island (Nurupai) are the most well-known of the Torres Strait Islands. Activities on the islands are quite traditional, with fishing being the major economic activity. To travel to the remote islands (other than Thursday and Horn Islands) permission is required from the Torres Strait Regional Authority.
The five major island groups of the Torres Strait include:
- Northern Division (Boigu, Dauan, Saibai)
- Eastern Islands (Darnley, Murray, Stephen)
- Western Division (St. Pauls, Kubin, Badu, Mabuiag)
- Central Division (Yorke, Coconut, Warraber, Yam)
- Southern Division (TI and Inner Islands, NPA and Mainland Australia)
Read more about this topic: Torres Strait Regional Authority
Famous quotes containing the word islands:
“Consider the islands bearing the names of all the saints, bristling with forts like chestnut-burs, or Echinidæ, yet the police will not let a couple of Irishmen have a private sparring- match on one of them, as it is a government monopoly; all the great seaports are in a boxing attitude, and you must sail prudently between two tiers of stony knuckles before you come to feel the warmth of their breasts.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color-line—the relation of the darker to the lighter races of men in Asia and Africa, in America and the islands of the sea. It was a phase of this problem that caused the Civil War.”
—W.E.B. (William Edward Burghardt)