Australia Facts

Australia is much more than the Sydney Opera House and kangaroos. Find out more about this amazing country!

• Australia is the 6th largest country in the world, occupying an entire continent of some 7.6 million square kilometers.

• In the first few decades of the colony of Australia the majority of the population were convicts.

• Australia’s first ever police force was made from the 12 best behaved convicts.
  

  The building has 6,225 square metres of glass and 645 kilometres of electric cable.

• The only nation-continent of 20 million people in the world.

• Four out of 10 Australians are migrants or the first-generation children of migrants.

• Over 200 different languages and dialects are spoken in Australia including 45 Indigenous languages.

• Australia contains an amazing ecosystem with unique flora and fauna including pristine rainforest, ancient rock formations and beautiful beaches.

• Canberra was selected as the capital because Sydney and Melbourne could not stop arguing which city should be the capital of Australia.

• Melbourne used to be called Batmania, after one of its founders, John Batman.

• There are about 100 million sheep in Australia, making it the country with the second largest sheep population.

• The Sydney Opera House roof weighs more than 161,000 tons.

• The Great Barrier Reef is the largest organic construction on earth.

• The area of Australia that is covered by snow in winter is larger than the area of Switzerland.

• Approximately 1.35 trillion bottles of wine are produced by Australia.

• Australia has twenty percent of the poker machines in the world.

• Australia is renowned for its two most popular animals; koala and kangaroo.

• Kangaroo is Aborginee for, “I don’t understand what you’re saying.”

• There are approximately 1,500 species of spiders in Australia.

• Kangaroo meat can be purchased from the supermarket, butcher and available on restaurant menus as a healthier alternative to beef or lamb.

• Cotton candy is called fairy floss in Australia and all candies are referred to as lollies.

• The hottest recorded temperature in Australia is 50.7 degree Celsius and the lowest recorded temperature is minus 23 degree Celsius.

Check out the Map of Australia and Oceania with Countries and Capitals, and get some printable Australia flags!