51 Facts About Australia

Australia is the oldest, flattest, and driest inhabited continent, with the least fertile soils.

Australia's written history commenced with the European maritime exploration of Australia.

Australia has since maintained a stable liberal democratic political system and wealthy market economy.

Politically, Australia is a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy, comprising six states and ten territories.

Australia is a highly developed country with a high-income economy.

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Australia is a regional power, and has the world's thirteenth-highest military expenditure.

Name Australia is derived from the Latin Terra Australis ("southern land"), a name used for a hypothetical continent in the Southern Hemisphere since ancient times.

Until the early 19th century, Australia was best known as New Holland, a name first applied by the Dutch explorer Abel Tasman in 1644 and subsequently anglicised.

The name Australia was popularised by the explorer Matthew Flinders, who said it was "more agreeable to the ear, and an assimilation to the names of the other great portions of the Earth".

Australia appears in a book on astronomy by Cyriaco Jacob zum Barth published in Frankfurt am Main in 1545.

The first time that Australia appears to have been officially used was in April 1817, when Governor Lachlan Macquarie acknowledged the receipt of Flinders' charts of Australia from Lord Bathurst.

Northern coasts and waters of Australia were visited sporadically for trade by Makassan fishermen from what is Indonesia.

South Australia was founded as a "free province" — it was never a penal colony.

Western Australia was founded "free" but later accepted transported convicts, the last of which arrived in 1868, decades after transportation had ceased to the other colonies.

Australia was one of the founding members of the League of Nations in 1920, and subsequently of the United Nations in 1945.

Australia became the colonial ruler of the Territory of Papua in 1902 and of the Territory of New Guinea (formerly German New Guinea) in 1920.

In 1914, Australia joined the Allies in fighting the First World War, and took part in many of the major battles fought on the Western Front.

From 1939 to 1945, Australia joined the Allies in fighting the Second World War.

Since 1951, Australia has been a formal military ally of the United States, under the ANZUS treaty.

Traditional ownership of land was recognised in law for the first time when the High Court of Australia held in Mabo v Queensland (No 2) that the legal doctrine of terra nullius ("land belonging to no one") did not apply to Australia at the time of European settlement.

The world's smallest continent and sixth largest country by total area, Australia—owing to its size and isolation—is often dubbed the "island continent" and is sometimes considered the world's largest island.

Australia's size gives it a wide variety of landscapes, with tropical rainforests in the north-east, mountain ranges in the south-east, south-west and east, and desert in the centre.

Eastern Australia is marked by the Great Dividing Range, which runs parallel to the coast of Queensland, New South Wales and much of Victoria.

Climate of Australia is significantly influenced by ocean currents, including the Indian Ocean Dipole and the El Nino–Southern Oscillation, which is correlated with periodic drought, and the seasonal tropical low-pressure system that produces cyclones in northern Australia.

Australia has at least 755 species of reptile, more than any other country in the world.

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Besides Antarctica, Australia is the only continent that developed without feline species.

Australia is home to many dangerous animals including some of the most venomous snakes in the world.

All these factors have led to Australia's having the highest mammal extinction rate of any country in the world.

Australia was ranked 21st out of 178 countries in the world on the 2018 Environmental Performance Index.

Charles III reigns as King of Australia and is represented in Australia by the governor-general at the federal level and by the governors at the state level, who by convention act on the advice of his ministers.

In recent decades, Australia has entered into the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership multilateral free trade agreements as well as bilateral free trade agreements with the United States, China, Japan, South Korea, Indonesia, the United Kingdom and New Zealand.

Australia maintains a deeply integrated relationship with neighbouring New Zealand, with free mobility of citizens between the two countries under the Trans-Tasman Travel Arrangement and free trade under the Closer Economic Relations agreement.

Australia ranked fourth in the Center for Global Development's 2021 Commitment to Development Index.

Australia has been involved in United Nations and regional peacekeeping, disaster relief, as well as armed conflicts from the First World War onwards.

Australia had the second-highest level of household debt in the world in 2020, after Switzerland.

Australia has high levels of competitiveness and economic freedom, and is ranked eighth in the Human Development Index.

The country's most recognized and important sector of this type is mining, where Australia continues to have the highest penetration of technologies, especially drones, autonomous and remote-controlled vehicles and mine management software.

Australia consistently has ranked high in the Global Innovation Index.

In 2021, Australia ranked 25th out of the 132 economies featured in the GII 2021, down from being 22nd in 2019.

In common with many other developed countries, Australia is experiencing a demographic shift towards an older population, with more retirees and fewer people of working age.

Australia has a sign language known as Auslan, which is the main language of about 10, 112 deaf people who reported that they use Auslan language at home in the 2016 census.

Australia has 37 government-funded universities and three private universities, as well as a number of other specialist institutions that provide approved courses at the higher education level.

Australia has the highest ratio of international students per head of population in the world by a large margin, with 812, 000 international students enrolled in the nation's universities and vocational institutions in 2019.

Australia is home to a diversity of cultures, a result of its history of immigration.

Many of Australia's performing arts companies receive funding through the federal government's Australia Council.

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Australia has two public broadcasters, three commercial television networks, several pay-TV services, and numerous public, non-profit television and radio stations.

Australia is known for its cafe and coffee culture in urban centres.

Australia is unique in that it has professional leagues for four football codes.

Australia is one of five nations to have participated in every Summer Olympics of the modern era, and has hosted the Games twice: 1956 in Melbourne and 2000 in Sydney.

Australia has participated in every Commonwealth Games, hosting the event in 1938, 1962, 1982, 2006 and 2018.

Australia is notable for water-based sports, such as swimming and surfing.