Three places on Earth have an Australian queen (or really a Queen consort): Denmark, Greenland and the Faroe Islands.
Together they make up the Kingdom of Denmark, known as the Danish Realm.
Greenland and the Faroes are self-governing countries with their own parliaments and flags, but they share a monarch with Denmark. That monarch is King Frederik X, and his wife is Queen Mary, born Mary Donaldson in Hobart, Tasmania.
As the map shows, most of her realm is Greenland.
At about 2.2 million km², it is roughly 50 times the size of Denmark itself, though it has only around 57,000 people. Moreover, Australia is around 3.5X larger still.
The Faroe Islands, a cluster of 18 rocky islands halfway between Scotland and Iceland, barely register at this scale.
How did Tasmanian end up here?
During the Sydney 2000 Olympics, Mary was having a drink at the Slip Inn when a Dane who called himself “Fred” introduced himself.
He was Crown Prince Frederik. Four years later she had moved to Copenhagen, learned Danish, changed churches, given up her Australian citizenship and married him.
On New Year’s Eve 2023, Queen Margrethe II surprised Denmark by announcing her abdication.
On 14 January 2024, Frederik became king and Mary became queen consort, the first Australian-born queen in history. (Technically she reigns alongside the king rather than in her own right, but she’s the queen all the same.)
Meanwhile, Australia has a (non-Australian born) king
What’s not on the map is Australia itself!
The one country you might expect to have an Australian queen.
Australia is a monarchy too, but its king is Charles III, who reigns separately as King of Australia and is represented locally by a Governor-General. The role is mostly ceremonial, though in 1975 the Governor-General dismissed an elected prime minister, Gough Whitlam.
Australians voted on becoming a republic in 1999 and rejected it 55–45, partly because many republicans wanted a directly elected president rather than one chosen by parliament.
Anthony Albanese, a republican, created an “assistant minister for the republic” in 2022, but after the Voice referendum failed in 2023 the push stalled.
Polls put support for a republic at around 35–45%, short of what’s needed. A referendum must win both a national majority and majorities in at least four of the six states, and only 8 of 45 proposals have ever passed.
So the only Australian queen in the world reigns over Greenland, the Faroes and Denmark, while Australia keeps a British-born king.
Leave a Reply