Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands.
With an area of 7,617,930 square kilometres (2,941,300 sq mi), Australia is the largest country by area in Oceania and the world’s sixth-largest country. Australia is the oldest,flattest, and driest inhabited continent, with the least fertile soils.
It is a megadiverse country, and its size gives it a wide variety of landscapes and climates, with deserts in the centre, tropical rainforests in the north-east, and mountain ranges in the south-east.
List of Facts
Australia’s population is nearly 26 million
The name Australia comes from the Latin, ‘Terra Australia Incognito’, which means the Unknown Southern Land.
Australia has the world’s eighth-largest immigrant population
Australia is the 6th largest country by size – covering 7.692 million km²
Immigrants account for 30% of the Australian population
Australia has the lowest population density in the world
Australia is the biggest island in the world.
Human habitation of the Australian continent is known to have begun about 65,000 years ago
Australia is almost the same size as mainland USA.
The capital of Australia is Canberra.
Canberra means “a woman’s cleavage” since two mountains cradle the city.
At 2228 m, Mount Kosciuszko is the highest mountain on the Australian mainland
80% of Aussies live less than 50km from the coastline
The coldest temperature in Australia is -23°C.
50.7°C is the highest temperature ever recorded in Australia.
The Australian Alps regularly receive more snow than Switzerland
Fraser Island is the largest sand island in the world.
Australia’s Highway 1 is the world’s longest national highway road in the world. It has a length of 14,500 kilometres.
Australia has 8 states – Queensland, New South Wales, Australian Capital Territory, Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia, Tasmania, and the Northern Territory.
Melbourne was previously called Batmania. It was after one of its founders.
There are around 200 different types of races and cultures within Australia
Australia has 3.6 million hectares of rainforest, 3% of the land mass.
Australia is the world’s smallest continent
Australia is the driest inhabited continent
Melbourne has one of the largest Greek populations in the world – 150000
Australia is the only continent that doesn’t have an active volcano.
The official national day of Australia is ‘Australia Day’. It occurs on the 26th day of January.
Australia is surrounded by 3 different Oceans – the Southern Ocean, the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean.
The Great Victoria Desert is larger than the whole of the United Kingdom
Australia has at least 755 species of reptile, more than any other country in the world
In Australia, sheep outnumber people 2.5 to 1 (in 2020)
Australia is home to 21 of the world’s 25 most venomous snakes.
The largest cattle station in the world is located in Australia and it’s bigger than Israel.
There are 1 million Camels that roam wild in Australia’s Deserts
The country exports about 10,000 camels to the Middle East mainly for their meat
Australia has 25 million kangaroos
There are more than 1.6 million dairy cows in Australia
120 million red crabs are living on Christmas Island, Australia.
More than 80% of Australia’s plants and animals are unique
Australia is home to more than 1,500 species of spiders.
There are over 60 different types of Kangaroo.
Australia’s most deadly marine animal is the Box Jellyfish
The only two mammals in the world that lay eggs are found in Australia – the echidna and platypus.
Kangaroos and emus lack the ability to walk backwards
Australia has around 600 varieties of eucalypts, often called gum trees.
Australia is home to 10,685 beaches
The world’s largest rock is Mount Augustus in Western Australia.
The Dingo Fence, built to keep out dingoes, is the longest fence in the world and located in Australia.
Australian Rules Football was invented to keep Cricketers fit in the offseason.
Australians eat 260 million meat pies every year
The first Police Force in Australia was made up of the most well-behaved convicts.
Australia invented the world’s first seat belt law in 1970
Around 1.3 billion litres of wine are produced each year in Australia.
The Great Barrier Reef is the biggest coral reef system in the world
The Great Barrier Reef has its own Post Office box
Australia has 19 World Heritage Listed sites
Western Australia has several pink lakes such as Lake Hillier
The Sydney Opera House took 14 years to build.
Australia is the 5th largest wine exporter in the world.
The world’s oldest fossil, at 3.4-billion-year-old, was found in Australia.
Aussies drink 1.7 billion litres of beer per year (that’s about 680 bottles of beer for each adult.)
95% of opal stones come from Australia.
In 1902, women received the right to vote in Australia.
80% of adults involved regularly in some form of betting or gambling
Nullarbor Links is “the World’s Longest Golf course”, at 1,365 kilometers
Gina Rinehart, the wealthiest Australian woman has a net worth of $29 billion.
Western Australia is currently the worlds largest producer of gold.
You can fly from Perth to Melbourne faster than you can fly from one end of Western Australia to the other.
The mysterious platypus has venom strong enough to can kill a small dog.
