List of Australian penal colonies

The following is a list of Australian penal colonies that existed from the establishment of European presence in the 1780s up until the nineteenth century. The term colony had referred to settlements and larger land areas at that time.

Colony	State	Year opened	Year closed
Cockatoo Island	New South Wales	1839	1869
Rose Hill	New South Wales	1787?
Sydney Cove	New South Wales	1788	1840
Moreton Bay	Queensland	1824
Redcliffe	Queensland	1823	1824
Maria Island	Van Diemen's Land[note 1]	1825	1851
Port Arthur	Van Diemen's Land
Richmond	Van Diemen's Land
Risdon Cove	Van Diemen's Land
Sarah Island, part of the Macquarie Harbour Penal Station	Van Diemen's Land	1822	1833
Saltwater River	Van Diemen's Land
Sullivan's Cove	Van Diemen's Land
King George's Sound	Western Australia	1826	1832[note 2]
Swan River Colony	Western Australia	1850	1868[note 3]
Norfolk Island	Other	1788	1855[note 4]

This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.

Notes

1. Later renamed Tasmania
2. Convicts transferred back to Sydney
3. Last convict ship arrived 9 January 1868
4. Except for an 11-year hiatus between 15 February 1814 and 6 June 1825

See also

• List of prisons in Australia