Location map of Australia
Australia in brief
Destination Australia, a Nations Online country profile of the "unknown southern land."
Some say, with Australia, you get it all: a
continent with its own tectonic plate, a
country with a population density others can only dream of, and a massive
island with a 30,000 km long beach.
Australia is situated entirely in the southern hemisphere, between the Indian and the Pacific ocean, south of Maritime Southeast Asia and north of the Antarctic.
With an
area of 7,617,930 km², Australia is almost (95%) as large as the continental
USA (excluding Alaska). The sixth-largest country in the world has a
population of just 25.7 million inhabitants (in 2021).
Australia shares maritime borders with
East Timor,
Indonesia,
New Zealand,
Papua New Guinea, the
Solomon Islands, and the islands of
New Caledonia (a special collectivity of
France).
The country's capital city is
Canberra; other major cities are
Adelaide,
Alice Springs,
Brisbane (1.6 million)
Darwin,
Hobart,
Melbourne (3.5 million), and
Perth, the largest city is
Sydney (4.2 million). The official
language is English.
What is Australia most famous for?
The Pinnacles, limestone formations within Nambung National Park in Western Australia.
Image: Tobias Keller
What comes to mind when you think of Australia? It's down under? The funny use of the
English language by locals?
Is there more to the planet's largest island than wallabies, emus, and Uluru?
Yep, koalas and kangaroos!
Joking aside, Australia is famous for its unique
fauna and flora. Due to its geographic isolation, its ecosystem is very different from other parts of the world. There are more than 24,000 species of native plants on the continent, and
marsupials occupy the ecological niches that placental mammals occupy elsewhere in the world.
Main attractions in Australia
The
Great Barrier Reef, the largest contiguous collection of more than 2,900 individual coral reefs on earth.
Uluru, also known as Ayers Rock, is the largest monolith in the world and a sacred place for the Anangu people.
There is the iconic and world-famous
Sydney Opera House near the popular
Sydney Harbour Bridge.
The
Great Ocean Road, an Australian National Heritage-listed 243 km long scenic road along Australia's southeastern coast.
The Outback, the remote and usually uninhabited inland regions of Australia.
Pink lakes in South and Western Australia and the
Pinnacles, limestone formations within Nambung National Park in Western Australia.
Trivia: It is the least populated continent, and the majority of the population lives near the coast.
Voting is compulsory in Australia. Mainland Australia has 35,877 km of coastline and more than 10,000 beaches, of which Bondi Beach near Sydney and Cable Beach near Broome are the most popular. Winter in most parts of Australia lasts from June to August. The
Trans Australian Railway features the world's longest straight stretch of railway, 478 km (297 mi).
Q1 Tower (322 m) is the tallest residential building in the country;
Sydney Tower (309 m) comes second. The country was known as
New Holland until the beginning of the 19th century. The
Wallaman Falls, a horsetail waterfall on the Stony Creek in North Queensland, drops 268 m. Australia is home to some of the most deadly animals in the world, spiders, snakes, crocodiles, jellyfish and octopus.
Administrative Map of Australia
Topographic Map of Australia
Google
Earth Map Australia
Geoscience Australia
Fimiston Open Pit gold mine at Kalgoorlie, also known as Super Pit gold mine, was Australia's largest open-cut gold mine until 2016 when the Western Australian Newmont Boddington gold mine surpassed it.
Budj Bim Cultural Landscape
Wikipedia: Australia
