The prop­er­ty includes a selec­tion of eleven penal sites, among the thou­sands estab­lished by the British Empire on Aus­tralian soil in the 18th and 19th cen­turies. The sites are spread across Aus­tralia, from Fre­man­tle in West­ern Aus­tralia to Kingston and Arthur‘s Vale on Nor­folk Island in the east, and from areas around Syd­ney in New South Wales in the north, to sites locat­ed in Tas­ma­nia in the south. Around 166,000 men, women and chil­dren were sent to Aus­tralia over 80 years between 1787 and 1868, con­demned by British jus­tice to trans­porta­tion to the con­vict colonies. Each of the sites had a spe­cif­ic pur­pose, in terms both of puni­tive impris­on­ment and of reha­bil­i­ta­tion through forced labour to help build the colony. The Aus­tralian Con­vict Sites presents the best sur­viv­ing exam­ples of large-scale con­vict trans­porta­tion and the colo­nial expan­sion of Euro­pean pow­ers through the pres­ence and labour of con­victs.