FLINDERS ISLAND

northernmost and largest island of the Furneaux Group, Tasmania, Australia, with an area of about 800 square miles (2,080 sq km). It lies in eastern Bass Strait, between Tasmania and the Australian mainland, and is named for Matthew Flinders, the English navigator who surveyed its coasts in 1798. The island is hilly, rising to Strzelecki Peaks, 2,552 feet (778 m), in the south. It is indented with numerous bays; those on the west coast are rimmed with terra rossa (red earth) soils and support cattle and sheep. The main settlement is at Whitemark, on the west coast. A fish-processing works was opened on the island in 1977 and a sanctuary for Cape Barren geese in 1980. Pop. (1981) 1,039.