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1. Australia Factbook · Introduction

   Background

   Background · Aboriginal Australians arrived on the continent at least 60,000 years ago and developed complex hunter-gatherer societies and oral histories. Dutch navigators led by Abel TASMAN were the first Europeans to land in Australia in 1606, and they mapped the western and northern coasts. They named the continent New Holland but made no attempts to permanently settle it. In 1770, Englishman James COOK sailed to the east coast of Australia, named it New South Wales, and claimed it for Great Britain. In 1788 and 1825 respectively, Great Britain established New South Wales and then Tasmania as penal colonies. Great Britain and Ireland sent more than 150,000 convicts to Australia before ending the practice in 1868. As Europeans began settling areas away from the coasts, they came into more direct contact with Aboriginal Australians. Europeans also cleared land for agriculture, impacting Aboriginal Australians’ ways of life. These issues, along with disease and a policy in the 1900s that forcefully removed Aboriginal children from their parents, reduced the Aboriginal Australian population from more than 700,000 pre-European contact to a low of 74,000 in 1933.

2. Australia Factbook · Introduction

   Background

   Background · Four additional colonies were established in Australia in the mid-1800s: Western Australia (1829), South Australia (1836), Victoria (1851), and Queensland (1859). Gold rushes beginning in the 1850s brought thousands of new immigrants to New South Wales and Victoria, helping to reorient Australia away from its penal colony roots. In the second half of the 1800s, the colonies were all gradually granted self-government, and in 1901, they federated and became the Commonwealth of Australia. Australia contributed more than 400,000 troops to Allied efforts during World War I, and Australian troops played a large role in the defeat of Japanese troops in the Pacific in World War II. Australia severed most constitutional links with the UK in 1942 but remained part of the British Commonwealth. Australia’s post-war economy boomed and by the 1970s, racial policies that prevented most non-Whites from immigrating to Australia were removed, greatly increasing Asian immigration to the country. In recent decades, Australia has become an internationally competitive, advanced market economy due in large part to economic reforms adopted in the 1980s and its proximity to East and Southeast Asia.

3. Australia Factbook · Introduction

   Background

   Background · In the early 2000s, Australian politics became unstable with frequent attempts to oust party leaders, including five changes of prime minister between 2010 and 2018. As a result, both major parties instituted rules to make it harder to remove a party leader.

4. Australia Factbook · Geography

   Location

   Location · Oceania, continent between the Indian Ocean and the South Pacific Ocean

5. Australia Factbook · Geography

   Geographic coordinates

   Geographic coordinates · 27 00 S, 133 00 E

6. Australia Factbook · Geography

   Map references

   Map references · Oceania

7. Australia Factbook · Geography

   Surface area

   Surface area · 7741220

8. Australia Factbook · Geography

   total:

   total: · 7,741,220 sq km

9. Australia Factbook · Geography

   land:

   land: · 7,682,300 sq km

10. Australia Factbook · Geography

    water:

    water: · 58,920 sq km

11. Australia Factbook · Geography

    note:

    note: · includes Lord Howe Island and Macquarie Island

12. Australia Factbook · Geography

    Area - comparative

    Area - comparative · slightly smaller than the 48 contiguous US states

13. Australia Factbook · Geography

    total:

    total: · 0 km

14. Australia Factbook · Geography

    Coastline

    Coastline · 25,760 km

15. Australia Factbook · Geography

    territorial sea:

    territorial sea: · 12 nm

16. Australia Factbook · Geography

    contiguous zone:

    contiguous zone: · 24 nm

17. Australia Factbook · Geography

    exclusive economic zone:

    exclusive economic zone: · 200 nm

18. Australia Factbook · Geography

    continental shelf:

    continental shelf: · 200 nm or to the edge of the continental margin

19. Australia Factbook · Geography

    Climate

    Climate · generally arid to semiarid; temperate in south and east; tropical in north

20. Australia Factbook · Geography

    Terrain

    Terrain · mostly low plateau with deserts; fertile plain in southeast

21. Australia Factbook · Geography

    highest point:

    highest point: · Mount Kosciuszko 2,228 m

22. Australia Factbook · Geography

    lowest point:

    lowest point: · Lake Eyre -15 m

23. Australia Factbook · Geography

    mean elevation:

    mean elevation: · 330 m

24. Australia Factbook · Geography

    Natural resources

    Natural resources · alumina, coal, iron ore, copper, lithium, tin, gold, silver, uranium, nickel, tungsten, rare earth elements, mineral sands, lead, zinc, diamonds, opals, natural gas, petroleum

25. Australia Factbook · Geography

    note 1:

    note 1: · Australia is the world's largest net exporter of coal accounting for 26.5% of global coal exports in 2021; coal is the country’s most abundant energy resource, and coal ranks as the second-largest export commodity from Australia in terms of revenue; in 2020, Australia held the third-largest recoverable coal reserves in the world behind the United States and Russia

26. Australia Factbook · Geography

    note 2:

    note 2: · Australia is by far the world's largest supplier of opals

27. Australia Factbook · Geography

    note 3:

    note 3: · Australia holds the largest uranium reserves in the world and was the second-largest global uranium producer behind Kazakhstan in 2020

28. Australia Factbook · Geography

    note 4:

    note 4: · Australia was the largest exporter of LNG in the world in 2020

29. Australia Factbook · Geography

    agricultural land:

    agricultural land: · 47.2% (2023 est.)

30. Australia Factbook · Geography

    arable land:

    arable land: · 4% (2023 est.)

31. Australia Factbook · Geography

    permanent crops:

    permanent crops: · 0.1% (2023 est.)

32. Australia Factbook · Geography

    permanent pasture:

    permanent pasture: · 43.1% (2023 est.)

33. Australia Factbook · Geography

    forest:

    forest: · 17.3% (2023 est.)

34. Australia Factbook · Geography

    other:

    other: · 35.4% (2023 est.)

35. Australia Factbook · Geography

    Irrigated land

    Irrigated land · 19,450 sq km (2022)

36. Australia Factbook · Geography

    fresh water lake(s):

    fresh water lake(s): · Lake Alexandrina - 570 sq km

37. Australia Factbook · Geography

    salt water lake(s):

    salt water lake(s): · Lake Eyre - 9,690 sq km; Lake Torrens (ephemeral) - 5,780 sq km; Lake Gairdner - 4,470 sq km; Lake Mackay (ephemeral) - 3,494 sq km; Lake Frome - 2,410 sq km; Lake Amadeus (ephemeral) - 1,032 sq km

38. Australia Factbook · Geography

    Major rivers (by length in km)

    Major rivers (by length in km) · River Murray - 2,508 km; Darling River - 1,545 km; Murrumbidgee River - 1,485 km; Lachlan River - 1,339 km; Cooper Creek - 1,113 km; Flinders River - 1,004 km

39. Australia Factbook · Geography

    Indian Ocean drainage:

    Indian Ocean drainage: · (Great Australian Bight) Murray-Darling (1,050,116 sq km)

40. Australia Factbook · Geography

    Internal (endorheic basin) drainage:

    Internal (endorheic basin) drainage: · Lake Eyre (1,212,198 sq km)

41. Australia Factbook · Geography

    Major aquifers

    Major aquifers · Great Artesian Basin, Canning Basin

42. Australia Factbook · Geography

    Population distribution

    Population distribution · population is primarily located on the periphery, with the highest concentration of people residing in the east and southeast; a secondary population center is located in and around Perth in the west; of the states and territories, New South Wales has, by far, the largest population; the interior, or "outback," has a very sparse population

43. Australia Factbook · Geography

    Natural hazards

    Natural hazards · cyclones along the coast; severe droughts; forest fires

44. Australia Factbook · Geography

    volcanism:

    volcanism: · volcanic activity on Heard and McDonald Islands

45. Australia Factbook · Geography

    note 1:

    note 1: · world's smallest continent but sixth-largest country; the largest country in Oceania, the largest country entirely in the Southern Hemisphere, and the largest country without land borders

46. Australia Factbook · Geography

    note 2:

    note 2: · the Great Dividing Range that runs along eastern Australia is that continent’s longest mountain range and the third-longest land-based range in the world; the term "Great Dividing Range" refers to the fact that the mountains form a watershed crest from which all of the rivers of eastern Australia flow – east, west, north, and south

47. Australia Factbook · Geography

    note 3:

    note 3: · Australia is the only continent without glaciers; it is the driest inhabited continent on earth; Perth on the west coast is home to the invigorating sea breeze known as the "Fremantle Doctor," one of the most consistent winds in the world; Australia hosts 10% of the world's biodiversity, and a great number of its flora and fauna exist nowhere else in the world

48. Australia Factbook · People and Society

    Population

    Population · 27614411

49. Australia Factbook · People and Society

    total:

    total: · 26,768,598 (2024 est.)

50. Australia Factbook · People and Society

    male:

    male: · 13,305,110

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