Tasmania is a large island south of the Australian mainland, across a stretch of rough water called the Bass Strait, and it is one of the six states of Australia — the smallest one, with about half a million people. Its capital is Hobart. Because it lies further south than anywhere else in Australia, it is the cool, wet, green part of the country: forests, mountains, rain, and cold clean air, which is not the Australia most people picture. Australians often shorten it to 'Tassie' (say it TAZ-ee) in friendly speech. Two things attached to the name in English are worth knowing. One is the Tasmanian devil, a small black meat-eating animal with a famously bad temper and a horrible scream, found wild only there. The other is a sad history: the island was a British prison colony, and the Aboriginal people who had lived there for tens of thousands of years were nearly wiped out in the 1800s. So the name can carry that weight in a history book while meaning nothing but holidays and hiking in a travel article.