Australia
- Australia has a range of different landscapes, including urban areas, mountain ranges, deserts and rain forests.
- Australia is home to a variety of unique animals, including the koala, kangaroo, emu, kookaburra and platypus.
- Although they usually keep to themselves, there are a range of dangerous snakes in Australia, such as the Brown Snake, Tiger Snake and Taipan.
- The world's largest reef system, the Great Barrier Reef, is found off the north-eastern coast of Australia.
- The indigenous people of Australia are Australian Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders.
- It is estimated the humans have lived in Australia for around 45000 years.
- The name ‘Australia’ comes from the Latin word ‘australis’, meaning southern.
- Due to its large size and isolation from the rest of the world, Australia is sometimes known as the ‘island continent’.
- Australia is the world's 6th largest country by area.
- There are 1500 species of Australian spiders.
- Australia has the world's largest population of wild camels with one hump.
- There are more than 150 million sheep in Australia, and only some 20 million people.
- Australia has the world's largest cattle station (ranch). At 30,028 km2 it is almost the same size as Belgium.
- No part of Australia is more than 1000 km from the ocean and a beach (The point in the world that's the furthest from any ocean would be in China.)
- Population density in Australia is usually calculated in km2 per person, not people per km2.
- We call Australian's from Queensland "banana benders", and people from Western Australia "sandgropers".
- Melbourne has the second largest Greek population in the world, after Athens.
- The first Australian Friendly Society with the motto of 'Advance Australia' was the Australian Natives' Association (ANA) formed in Victoria in 18.
- More than 80 percent of Australians live within 100 kilometres of the coast making Australia one of the world's most urbanised coastal dwelling populations.
- The world's highest proportion of migrant settlers in a developed nation with over 25% of Australians born in another country.
- Australia's first small step to a fully multicultural Australia was the result of immigrants from Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean after 1945.
- The sports capital of the world has 70 percent of its total population participating at least once a week in a particular recreational activity or sport.
- Australians refer to English people as Pome, which is actually the acronym for Prisoners of Mother England.
- The only place in the world where you can still find the lung fish which is a living fossil from the Triassic period 350 million years ago.
- The first Australian of the Year award was awarded to Professor Macfarlane Burnet who had won the Nobel Prize in the same year of 1960 for his groundbreaking physiology research.
- It has 16 world heritage listed sites including historic townships, cities and landscapes.
- Australia was the second country in the world to give women the right to vote in 1902.
- It has the highest rate of gambling in the world with over 80 percent of Australian adults engaging in gambling of some kind and 20 percent of the pokie machines in the world are found in Australia.
- Surprisingly Australia is the most obese country in the world as of 2012 with a 26 percent obesity rate despite being a sport loving nation.
