The 27 islands of the Cocos (Keeling) group lie 670 miles (1,070 km) southwest of the Indonesian island of Sumatra. The islands remained uninhabited until the nineteenth century. In the 1820s, the English Clunies-Ross family established coconut plantations in the islands, worked by imported Malay laborers. Great Britain claimed the islands in 1857 and in 1886 granted near-monarchical rights to George Clunies-Ross (1823–1872) and his descendants. The British annexed the islands to Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) and later to Singapore, before ceding them to Australia in 1955. The Clunies-Ross family ruled the islands until 1978. The islands, which comprise two coral atolls (West Island and Home Island) and 25 islets, are an external territory of Australia, and since 1984, the Australian government has been represented by an administrator. The economy depends almost entirely upon the export of copra and other coconut products.COUNTRY PROFILE
FLAG
The flag flown by the Cocos (Keeling) Islands is green. A gold disk in the canton (the upper lefthand corner) displays a palm tree, while the fly (the part of the flag farthest from the flagpost) has a golden crescent (to represent the islands’ Malay residents) and the Southern Cross stars from the national flag of Australia, but displayed in gold. The flag was adopted in 2003 but has not yet been officially recognized by Australia. The Australian authorities in the islands fly the national flag of Australia.
GEOGRAPHY
SETTLEMENTS, 2001 POPULATION
POPULATION
ECONOMY
GOVERNMENT
TRANSPORTATION
POPULATION PROFILE, 2001 ESTIMATES
