Key facts
Australia is the island, the continent, and the sixth largest country in the world – its area is 7,686,900 square kilometres. It lies to the south of Asia between the Indian and Pacific Oceans. The population of Australia is 22 million and the capital city is Canberra. The language is English, and the currency is the Australian dollar.

The people
The Aborigines have lived in Australia for about 50,000 years. There are now only around 250,000 Aboriginal Australians and the government is making major efforts to preserve their culture. Over 70% of Australians live in cities or towns, on the south-east and south-west coasts. The (and ) city is Sydney, with a population of 4.5 million.

Geography
Australia is for its ‘outback’, the land of the interior – about two-thirds of the country is rocky desert or semi-desert. On the plains there are grasslands, watered by Australia’s river, the Murray-Darling (3,696 kilometres). Australia also has mountain ranges; its mountain is Mount Kosciuszko (2,228 metres) in the south-east. The island of Tasmania lies off the coast, and off the coast is the Great Barrier Reef. This coral reef is over 2,000 kilometres long, and it’s the structure in the world!

Wildlife
Australian animals include the kangaroo, koala and platypus, and birds such as the emu and the ‘’ kookaburra. The rainforests in the north have a variety of birds, crocodiles, spiders and snakes. And the Great Barrier Reef is home to hundreds of sharks and thousands of tropical fish.

Weather
The climate is , with sunshine and rain. temperatures in Sydney are 8 to 16 degrees Celsius in July and 18 to 26 degrees Celsius in January. Much of the Australian interior has a climate, with temperatures during the day which drop at night. There are often monsoons in the north, and hurricanes and cyclones on the and coasts. But droughts are also common – a third of the country has under 26 millimetres of rain a year!