page_title: Torres Strait Islands
section_title: Administration
hierarchical_section_title: Torres Strait Islands / Administration
caption_attribution_description: English: Hammond Island, Torres Strait
context_page_description: The Torres Strait Islands are a group of at least 274 small islands in Torres Strait, the waterway separating far northern continental Australia's Cape York Peninsula and the island of New Guinea. They span an area of 48,000 km², but their total land area is 566 km².
  Lieutenant James Cook first claimed British sovereignty over the eastern part of Australia at Possession Island in 1770, but British administrative control only began in the Torres Strait Islands in 1862. The islands are now mostly part of Queensland, a constituent State of the Commonwealth of Australia, but are administered by the Torres Strait Regional Authority, a statutory authority of the Australian federal government. A few islands very close to the coast of mainland New Guinea belong to the Western Province of Papua New Guinea, most importantly Daru Island with the provincial capital, Daru.
  Only 14 of the islands are inhabited. The Torres Strait Islands' population was recorded at 4,514 in the 2016 Australian census, with 91.8% of these identifying as Indigenous Torres Strait Island peoples.
caption: Hammond Island, Torres Strait
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