HISTORY  OF N ORTHERN  T ERRITORY 

Northern Territory, territory in northern Australia, bordered on the northwest by the Timor Sea, on the north and northeast by the Arafura Sea and the Gulf of Carpentaria, on the east by the state of Queensland, on the west by the state of Western Australia, and on the south by the state of South Australia. The Northern Territory is the third largest land division in Australia, after Western Australia and Queensland, with an area of 1,346,200 sq km (519,771 sq mi), or 17.5 percent of Australia. The territory's coastline measures 6200 km (3852 mi), and several islands fall within its boundaries. The capital of the Northern Territory is Darwin, on the northwestern coast.

In the early 17th century, on the eve of the Europeans' arrival in Australia, an estimated 35,000 Aborigines lived in the area now known as the Northern Territory. Their cultures, especially in the northern part of the territory, were varied and ethnically diverse. In the 19th century, Europeans tried to establish a number of settlements in this area, but the combination of hostile Aboriginal groups and extremes of climate destroyed a number of these settlements and discouraged more.
As the rest of Australia was divided into British colonies, the Northern Territory gained a reputation as the land its neighbors did not want. In 1863 the colony of South Australia took responsibility for the territory, and in 1869 Europeans finally established a permanent settlement, at Palmerston, which was renamed Darwin in 1911. Ranchers from South Australia gradually settled in the territory; the economy generated by their stations would sustain the region until mining and tourism took over in the 1970s and 1980s.
In 1911, ten years after Australia became independent from Britain, South Australia gave control of the territory to the federal government, which appointed administrators to govern it.
The Northern Territory was (and remains) heavily dependent on the federal government for money. Later strategic factors, including the Japanese bombings of Darwin during World War II, awakened greater interest in the so-called "Top End" of the continent, and in 1974 the territory was granted an elected Legislative Assembly. Full internal self-government followed in 1978. Over the years there have been several bids for statehood, but these have foundered on the territory's financial reliance on the federal government and other obstacles.
The Northern Territory was greatly affected by the 1992 Mabo case. In Mabo, the High Court of Australia ruled that Australia was not terra nullis (empty land) when Europeans arrived.
Australia, said the Court, was inhabited by Aborigines who had a right to the land that Europeans eventually took from them. In 1993, in response to Mabo, the Australian parliament passed the Native Land Title Act, which gave Aborigines the right to claim land if they could show a "close and continuing" relationship with it. At the time, native Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders controlled 34 percent of the Northern Territory. As claims are made under the Native Land Title Act, Aboriginal control over land-and the often-rich resources in it-is likely to rise.