Australia's most surprising city — where MONA (the Museum of Old and New Art) is a collection so deliberately confrontational and subversive that it describes itself as 'a place that adults and children can experience simultaneously but differently', the Salamanca Market on sandstone Georgian warehouses is the finest farmers' market in the Southern Hemisphere, and Tasmania's wilderness — the cleanest air in the world, the tallest hardwood forests, and Australia's only active wilderness rivers — begins 30 minutes from the city centre
Hobart (235,000; metro 250,000) is the capital of Tasmania and Australia's second-oldest city (founded 1804, after Sydney) — positioned at the foot of kunanyi/Mount Wellington (1,271 m) on the Derwent River estuary, 50 km from the open Southern Ocean. The city is defined by MONA (Museum of Old and New Art), opened by eccentric Tasmanian multimillionaire David Walsh in 2011 in a labyrinthine underground museum carved into a dolerite cliff face at Moorilla Estate — the most visited tourist attraction in Tasmania, MONA houses Walsh's personal art collection (including works by Chris Ofili, Spenc…
The palawa people (Tasmanian Aboriginals — a genetically distinct population isolated from mainland Australia for 10,000 years after rising sea levels formed the Bass Strait) occupied Tasmania for at least 35,000 years before European contact. Lieutenant John Bowen established a penal settlement at Risdon Cove in September 1803 (the second British colony in Australia after Sydney), and David Collins established the main colony at Sullivan's Cove (present-day Hobart's CBD) in 1804. The 'Black War' (1824–1831) — Tasmania's frontier conflict between British colonists and the palawa people — ende…