Australia, the smallestcontinent and one of the largest countries on Earth, lying between thePacific andIndian oceans in the Southern Hemisphere. Australia’s capital isCanberra, located in the southeast between the larger and more important economic and cultural centres ofSydney andMelbourne.

The Australian mainland extends from west to east for nearly 2,500 miles (4,000 km) and fromCape York Peninsula in the northeast toWilsons Promontory in the southeast for nearly 2,000 miles (3,200 km). To the south, Australianjurisdiction extends a further 310 miles (500 km) to the southern extremity of the island ofTasmania, and in the north it extends to the southern shores ofPapua New Guinea. Australia is separated fromIndonesia to the northwest by theTimor andArafura seas, from Papua New Guinea to the northeast by theCoral Sea and theTorres Strait, from theCoral Sea Islands Territory by theGreat Barrier Reef, fromNew Zealand to the southeast by theTasman Sea, and fromAntarctica in the far south by the Indian Ocean.

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See article:flag of Australia

Audio File:Anthem of Australia (see article)

Head Of Government:

Prime Minister:Anthony Albanese

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Capital:

Canberra

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Population:

(2026 est.) 28,060,000

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Currency Exchange Rate:

1 USD equals 1.437 Australian dollar

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Head Of State:

British Monarch:King Charles III, represented by Governor-General: Sam Mostyn

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Form Of Government:

federal parliamentary state (formally a constitutional monarchy) with two legislative houses (Senate [76]; House of Representatives [150])

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Official Language:

none¹

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Official Religion:

none

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Official Name:

Commonwealth of Australia

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Total Area (Sq Km):

7,688,126

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Total Area (Sq Mi):

2,968,401

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Monetary Unit:

Australian dollar ($A)

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Population Rank:

(2026) 55

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Population Projection 2030:

27,564,000

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Density: Persons Per Sq Mi:

(2026) 9.5

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Density: Persons Per Sq Km:

(2026) 3.6

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Urban-Rural Population:

Urban: (2024) 81.9%

Rural: (2024) 18.1%

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Life Expectancy At Birth:

Male: (2022–2024) 81.1 years

Female: (2020–2022) 85.3 years

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Literacy: Percentage Of Population Age 15 And Over Literate:

Male: not available

Female: not available

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Gni (U.S.$ ’000,000):

(2024) 1,701,533

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Gni Per Capita (U.S.$):

(2024) 62,550

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1. There is no official language designated in the Australian constitution. English is widely considered the de facto national language.

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Australia has been called “the Oldest Continent,” “the Last of Lands,” and “the Last Frontier.” Those descriptions typify the world’s fascination with Australia, but they are somewhat unsatisfactory. In simple physical terms, the age of much of the continent is certainly impressive—most of the rocks providing the foundation of Australian landforms were formed duringPrecambrian andPaleozoic time (some 4.6 billion to 252 million years ago)—but the ages of the cores of all the continents are approximately the same. On the other hand, whereas the landscape history ofextensive areas in Europe andNorth America has been profoundly influenced by events and processes that occurred since late in the last Ice Age—roughly the past 25,000 years—in Australia scientists use a more extensive timescale that takes into account the great antiquity of the continent’s landscape.

Australia is the last of lands only in the sense that it was the last continent, apart from Antarctica, to beexplored by Europeans. At least 60,000 years before European explorers sailed into the South Pacific, the firstAboriginal explorers had arrived fromAsia, and by 20,000 years ago they had spread throughout the mainland and its chief island outlier, Tasmania. When CaptainArthur Phillip of the BritishRoyal Navy landed with the First Fleet atBotany Bay in 1788, there may have been between 250,000 and 500,000 Aboriginals, though some estimates are much higher. Largely nomadic hunters and gatherers, the Aboriginals had already transformed the primeval landscape, principally by the use of fire, and, contrary to common European perceptions, they had establishedrobust, semipermanent settlements in well-favoured localities.

The American-style concept of a national “frontier” moving outward along a line of settlement is also inappropriate. There was, rather, a series of comparatively independent expansions from the margins of the various colonies, which were not joined in an independent federated union until 1901. Frontiermetaphors were long employed to suggest the existence of yet another extension of Europe and especially of an outpost of Anglo-Celticculture in the distant “antipodes.”

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The most striking characteristics of the vastcountry are its global isolation, itslow relief, and the aridity of much of its surface. If, like the English novelistD.H. Lawrence, visitors from the Northern Hemisphere are at first overwhelmed by “the vast, uninhabited land and by the grey charred bush…so phantom-like, so ghostly, with its tall, pale trees and many dead trees, like corpses,” they should remember that to Australians the bush—that sparsely populated Inland orOutback beyond theGreat Dividing Range of mountains running along the Pacific coast and separating it from the cities in the east—is familiar and evokesnostalgia. It still retains some of the mystical quality it had for the first explorers searching for inland seas and great rivers, and it remains a symbol of Australia’s strength and independence; the Outback poem byA.B. (“Banjo”) Paterson, “Waltzing Matilda,” is the unofficialnational anthem of Australia known the world over.

Australia’s isolation from other continents explains much of the singularity of its plant and animal life. Its unique flora and fauna include hundreds of kinds ofeucalyptus trees and the only egg-laying mammals on Earth, theplatypus andechidna. Other plants and animals associated with Australia are various acacias (Acacia pycnantha [golden wattle] is the national flower) and dingoes, kangaroos, koalas, and kookaburras. TheGreat Barrier Reef, off the east coast of Queensland, is the greatest mass of coral in the world and one of the world’s foremost tourist attractions. The country’s low relief results from the long and extensive erosive action of the forces of wind, rain, and the heat of the sun during the great periods ofgeologic time when the continental mass was elevated well abovesea level.

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Isolation is also a pronounced characteristic of much of the social landscape beyond the large coastal cities. But an equally significant feature of modern Australian society is the representation of a broad spectrum ofcultures drawn from many lands, a development stemming from immigration that is transforming the strong Anglo-Celtic orientation of Australian culture. Assimilation, of course, is seldom a quick and easy process, and minority rights, multiculturalism, and race-related issues have played a large part in contemporary Australian politics. In the late 1990s these issues sparked aconservative backlash.

Australia has a federal form of government, with a national government for the Commonwealth of Australia and individual state governments (those ofNew South Wales,Victoria,Queensland,South Australia,Western Australia, andTasmania). Each state has a constitution, and its government exercises a limiteddegree ofsovereignty. There are also two internal territories:Northern Territory, established as aself-governing territory in 1978, and theAustralian Capital Territory (including the city of Canberra), which attained self-governing status in 1988. The federal authorities govern the external territories ofNorfolk Island, theCocos (Keeling) Islands,Christmas Island,Ashmore and Cartier islands, the Coral Sea Islands, andHeard Island and McDonald Islands and claim theAustralian Antarctic Territory, an area larger than Australia itself. Papua New Guinea, formerly an Australian external territory, gained its independence in 1975.

Historically part of theBritish Empire and now a member of theCommonwealth, Australia is a relatively prosperous independent country. Australians are in many respects fortunate in that they do not share their continent—which is only a little smaller than theUnited States—with any other country. Extremely remote from their traditional allies andtrading partners—it is some 12,000 miles (19,000 km) from Australia toGreat Britain via the Indian Ocean and theSuez Canal and about 7,000 miles (11,000 km) across the Pacific Ocean to the west coast of the United States—Australians have become more interested in the proximity of huge potential markets in Asia and in the highly competitive industrialized economies ofChina,Japan,South Korea, andTaiwan. Australia, the continent and the country, may have been quite isolated at the beginning of the 20th century, but it entered the 21st century a culturallydiverse land brimming with confidence, an attitude encouraged by the worldwide fascination with the land “Down Under” and demonstrated when Sydney hosted the2000 Olympic Games.