| Country Name |
Conventional long form: Commonwealth of Australia Conventional short form:
Australia |
| Location |
Oceania, continent between the Indian Ocean and the South Pacific Ocean |
| Geographic Coordinates |
27 00 S, 133 00 E |
| Area - Comparative |
Slightly smaller than the contiguous 48 states of the US |
| Climate |
Generally arid to semiarid; temperate in south and east; tropical in north |
| Elevation Extremes |
Lowest point: Lake Eyre -15 m Highest point: Mount Kosciuszko 2,229 m |
| Capital |
Canberra |
| National Holiday |
Australia Day, 26 January |
| Population |
19,357,594 (July 2001 est.) |
Life Expectancy
(at birth) |
Total population: 79.87 years Male: 77.02 years Female: 82.87 years (2001 est.) |
| Language |
English, native languages |
| Industries |
Mining, industrial and transportation equipment, food processing, chemicals, steel |
| Internet Users |
7.77 million (2000) |
* "Wet" means "simpleton" in Australian slang. The Wet is the rainy season in Northern Australia.
* About one fifth of Australia is covered by its eleven deserts.
* Arguably the largest state in the world, Western Australia covers one-third of the Australian continent. It spans over 2.5 million square kilometers (1 million square miles).
* Australia is divided into two territories and six states.
* Australia is the smallest, flattest, and driest inhabited continent in the World. It is the only country which is also a whole continent - 18.6 million people live here.
* Australia's Ayers Rock is the largest rock in the world. It rises out of the middle of the country with a diameter of 5½ miles around its base and a height of 1,000 feet.
* Australia's Great Barrier Reef stretches for 1,242 miles along the coast of Queensland. It is a chain of small islands and more than 2,500 reefs.
* Australia's city of Sydney began as a penal colony in 1788; for the next 60 years, it received the criminal and persecuted people of British society.
* Australia's highest mountain is named for Thaddeus Kosciusko, the Polish general who fought in the American Revolution.
* In Australia's metropolitan Melbourne, about 26 percent of the land is reserved for parks.
* South Australia's city of Adelaide is unusual in that it was settled by free people. The city has no convict history.
* Strangeray Springs cattle station in South Australia is the largest ranch in the world. Its area measures 30,029 square kilometers - only slightly smaller than the European country of Belgium.
* Sydney is the largest city in Australia. It contains 4 million people.
* The athletes from Iceland took 25 hours in the air to arrive in Sydney, Australia, for the 27th Olympic Games in September 2000.
* The largest lake in Australia is Eyre, measuring 3,420 square miles (8,885 sq. km).
Australia
