Country Profiles: Cocos (Keeling) Islands

Cocos (Keeling) Islands is located in Australia-Oceania.

There are 27 coral islands in the group. Captain William Keeling discovered the islands in 1609, but they remained uninhabited until the 19th century. From the 1820s to 1978, members of the CLUNIE-ROSS family controlled the islands and the copra produced from local coconuts. Annexed by the UK in 1857, the Cocos Islands were transferred to the Australian Government in 1955. The population on the two inhabited islands generally is split between the ethnic Europeans on West Island and the ethnic Malays on Home Island.
CIA World Factbook

. With an area of 14 sq km, it is about 24 times the size of The Mall in Washington, DC.

Cocos (Keeling) Islands is a group of islands in the Indian Ocean, southwest of Indonesia, about halfway between Australia and Sri Lanka. It is mostly flat, low-lying coral atolls.

People who live on the Cocos (Keeling) Islands are called Cocos Islanders, which is also an adjective used to describe something from this country. As of July 2010, there are 596 people on the Cocos (Keeling) Islands. The ethnic groups that reside in the Cocos (Keeling) Islands are Europeans and Cocos Malays. Malay (Cocos dialect) and English are spoken there. Sunni Muslims make up approximately 80% of the population.

The country's official name is the Territory of Cocos (Keeling) Islands. The capital is West Island. Since it is a territory of Australia, there is no constitution. The currency is the Australian dollar(abbreviated AUD), which stands at 0.9695 AUD per USD as of 2011.

The flag of Australia is used for the Territory of Cocos (Keeling) Islands

All of this information was gathered from the CIA World Factbook. For more information, check out these resources...

Cocos (Keeling) Islands

Cocos (Keeling) Islands, CIA World Factbook

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