Australia Country Info - Oceania

Description and Basic Information

Australia with its capital Canberra is located in Oceania (Oceania, continent between the Indian Ocean and the South Pacific Ocean). It covers some 7,686,851 square kilometres (slightly smaller than the US contiguous 48 states) with 20,600,000 citizens. English is the language spoken by people in Australia.

Australia is the only country that has a whole continent itself. World famous for its natural wonders and wide open spaces, its beaches, deserts, the bush, and the Outback, Australia is actually one of the world's most highly urbanised countries. It is also well known for the cosmopolitan attractions of its large cities such as Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth. As a large continent a wide variation of climates are found across Australia. The north is hot and tropical, while south tends to sub-tropical and temperate. Most rainfall is around the coast.

Pictures from Capital (Canberra)

Photos provided by Panoramio are under the copyright of their owners.

About Australia

The topography features mostly low plateau with deserts with fertile plain in southeast. The average density of population is about 2 per km². The climate in Australia can be described as generally arid to semiarid with temperate in south and east, tropical in north. Potential natural disasters are cyclones along the coast or severe droughts or forest fires.

To reach someone in Australia dial +61 prior to a number. There are 9,020,000 installed telephones. And there are 24,220,000 registered mobile phones. The cellular networks operate on frequencies of 900, 1800 MHz and 3G. Websites typically end with the top level domain ".au". If you want to bring electric appliances (e.g. battery charger), keep in mind the local 230V - 50Hz. The following list are the 8 regions/states in Australia we know off.

Demographic Statistics

In the year 2010, the total Australian population grew at a rate of 1.17% (or by 251,949 citizens). With 146,522 deaths and 266,580 babies born, the natural increase rate lies at 0.56%. 131,892 persons more in total immigrated to the country than emmigrated.

An overview of age distribution in Australia: Each pair of bars represents a single age group (male/female). Each group is spanning 5 years. E.g. 0 to 5 years, 5 to 10 etc. and group "0 to 5" being at the left end and "100 +" at the right end of the chart.

Based on content from wikitravel.org. The original article can be found here based on the work of these users.
Geographic information is based on the data provided by geonames.org, CIA factsbook and Unesco.