Largest prison island

Van Diemen’s Land, nowadays the Australian state of Tasmania, was used by the British as a penal colony during the early nineteenth century. The island has an area of 67,800 square kilometres (26,200 square miles). Convict settlements were established in 1803 and 1804 and numbers increased considerably from the 1820s onwards. The island became the main prison colony in Australia with around 75,000 convicts representing 40% of all the prisoners transported to Australia from Great Britain. Many were put to work for the benefit of free settlers in work gangs or as servants. Often the women were sent to female factories of which there were five on the island. Re-offending convicts were housed in a prison, Port Arthur, on the Tasman Peninsular. Transportation to Van Diemen’s Land ceased in 1853.