Country · Oceania
Australia
Commonwealth of Australia
Australia is a country in Australia and New Zealand. Its capital city is Canberra. About 25 million people live there, in an area of 7 692 024 square kilometres.
Picture credit: Dietmar Rabich (CC BY-SA 4.0) · Average Joe Pictures (CC BY-SA 4.0) · CSIRO (CC BY 3.0) · Tim J Keegan (CC BY-SA 2.0) · Thennicke (CC BY-SA 4.0) · Wikimedia Commons
Where is Australia?
Australia lies in Australia and New Zealand, on the continent of Oceania.
It sits in the southern half of the world, roughly 3 006 km from the equator.
Its coastline is about 25 760 km long.
It has no land neighbours — every border it has is with the sea.
How big is Australia?
Australia covers 7 692 024 square kilometres.
That is about 7.7 times the size of Egypt.
Among the world's countries that makes it the 6th largest.
Spread out evenly, that is roughly 3.2 people per square kilometre.
Who lives in Australia?
About 25 million people live in Australia.
That is the 55th biggest population in the world.
People here speak English.
They pay with the Australian dollar ($).
On average, people born here can expect to live about 80 years.
The land of Australia
The land in Australia sits on average 330 metres above sea level.
Its coast runs for about 25 760 km. Walking it end to end, at twenty kilometres a day, would take roughly 1 288 days.
It lies between the tropics and the poles, which is the single biggest reason its weather is the way it is.
What makes Australia different?
A dish the country is known for: Meat pie and Roast lamb.
Websites from here often end in .au.
Australia and the rest of the world
Out of every thousand people alive on Earth, about 3 live in Australia.
It takes up about 5.8 % of all the land that countries stand on.
Within Oceania it is the 1st largest of 14 countries, and the 1st most populated.
That is emptier than the world average of roughly 60 people per square kilometre.
Nature and animals
Of the animals on this site, 19 live wild in Australia: Red fox, Koala, Red kangaroo, Wombat, Tasmanian devil and Quokka and more. The highest mountain we cover here is Mount Kosciuszko, at 2 228 metres. The longest river is the Murray, running 2 508 km from source to mouth.
Red fox
Koala
Red kangaroo
Wombat
Tasmanian devil
Quokka
European rabbit
Dromedary
Barn owl
Emu
Humpback whale
Bottlenose dolphin
Photographs from Wikimedia Commons under free licences — every credit is on the page itself and in the picture credits.
Where this country lands in the record lists
Questions children ask
What is the capital of Australia?
The capital of Australia is Canberra. It is the city where the country's government works from.
How many people live in Australia?
About 25 million people live in Australia, which makes it the 55th most populated country in the world. (Source: World Bank, 2018.)
How big is Australia?
Australia covers 7 692 024 square kilometres, making it the 6th largest country in the world. That is about 7.7 times the size of Egypt.
Which continent is Australia in?
Australia is in Oceania, in the part called Australia and New Zealand.
Where these numbers come from
Borders and outlines: Natural Earth. Names, capitals, areas, languages and currencies: ISO 3166 data (world-countries). Population: World Bank, 2018. Every derived figure on this page (ranks, density, distance from the equator) is calculated from those values.
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