Afghan Australians

Afghan Australians are Australians whose ancestors came from Afghanistan or who were born in Afghanistan. According to the 2006 Australian census 16,751 Australians were born in Afghanistan while 19,416 claimed Afghan ancestry, either alone or with another ancestry.

Afghan cameleers

Although Afghans without camels are reported to have reached Australia as early as 1838, in the latter part of the 19th century several thousand men from Afghanistan, Baluchistan, Kashmir, Sind, Rajasthan, Egypt, Persia, Turkey and Punjab, but collectively known as "Afghans", were recruited during the initial British development of the Australian Outback, especially for the operation of camel trains in desert areas. The first Afghan cameleers arrived in Melbourne in June 1860, when three men arrived with a shipment of 24 camels for the Burke and Wills expedition. They continued to work in the arid interior of the continent from the 1860s to the 1930s, until finally being superseded by the development of railways and motorised road transport. The Afghans played an important supportive role in the exploration and economic development of the interior through carting water, food and materials to remote pastoral stations and mining settlements, as well as for the construction of the Overland Telegraph, and the Port Augusta to Alice Springs railway. They also had an important role in establishing the Muslim faith in Australia.