1.3 Human Geography and Demographics

Tasmania's population is unusually homogeneous. The state receives relatively little immigration, and an estimated 10,000 or fewer "founding families" in the mid-19th century are the ancestors of about 65% of its residents. As of 1996 more than 80% of Tasmanians were born in the state and almost 90% were born in Australia, New Zealand, Great Britain, and Ireland. The homogeneity makes it an attractive location to study population genetics. As of 2008, Tasmania is the only state in Australia which has an above-replacement total fertility rate. Tasmanian women have an average of 2.24 children each. This is also the highest TFR recorded in Tasmania after 1975.

Major population centres include Hobart, Launceston, Devonport, Burnie, as well as the state's largest town of Ulverstone – excluding Kingston, which is often defined as part of the Greater Hobart Area.

1.4 Language

The Tasmanian or Palawa languages were the languages indigenous to the island of Tasmania. The languages were last used for daily communication in the 1830s. The last full-blooded Tasmanian died on Flinders Island in 1888, but a Tasmanian lingua franca continued to be used until 1905, with the death of the last known speaker, Fanny Cochrane Smith. Tasmanian Aborigines today speak English.

Tasmanian languages are attested by three dozen word lists, the most extensive being those of Joseph Milligan and George Augustus Robinson. All these show a poor grasp of the sounds of Tasmanian, which appear to have been fairly typical of Australian languages in this parameter. Plomley (1976) presents all the lexical data available to him in 1976. Crowley and Dixon (1981) summarise what little is known of Tasmanian phonology and grammar. Bowern (2012) teases apart the mixture of languages in many of the lists and attempts to classify them into language families.

Little is known of the languages and no relationship to other languages is demonstrable. It appears that there were several language families on Tasmania, which would be in keeping with the long period of human habitation on the island. Joseph Greenberg proposed an Indo-Pacific superfamily which includes Tasmanian along with Andamanese and Papuan (but not Australian). This is not accepted by historical linguists.

Fanny Cochrane Smith recorded a series of wax cylinder recordings of Aboriginal songs, the only existing audio recording of a Tasmanian language, though they are of extremely poor quality, and the lingua franca Smith spoke was likely not pure Tasmanian. In 1972, a woman in Hobart shared with Terry Crowley one sentence and a few words that had been handed down for generations. From these sources, Tasmanian people are seeking to recover their lost languages and traditions. The largest language revival project to date is the Palawa kani project.

1.5 System of Government

The form of the Government of Tasmania is prescribed in its Constitution, which dates from 1856, although it has been amended many times since then. Since 1901 Tasmania has been a state of the Commonwealth of Australia, and the Australian Constitution regulates its relationship with the Commonwealth.

Under the Australian Constitution, Tasmania ceded certain legislative and judicial powers to the Commonwealth, but retained complete independence in all other areas. In practice, however, the independence of the Australian states has been greatly eroded by the increasing financial domination of the Commonwealth.