Interesting facts about Australia

A koala bear
A koala bear

The largest property in Australia is bigger than Belgium. The biggest cattle farm (located in SA) is larger than Isreal. There have been 16 shark attacks in Australia in 2017. Australia is the smallest inhabited continent with 23.14 million people.  Australia is 32 times the size of the UK but the United Kingdom has 65 million people (3 times the population of Aus). Two thirds of Australia is made up of desert, also known as the outback. There is also rainforest and mountains. In the desert, tempuratures can rise to 50 degrees celcius during the day and drop below 0 at night. More than 85% of Australians live around the coast.

The only place monotremes (egg laying mammals) can be found is in Australia. Platypuses are monotremes, they hunt in the water, with a long beak and webbed feet like a duck, waterproof fur like an otter, and a tail like a beaver. There is snow in the Australia, and the area covered by snow in winter is bigger than the size of Switzerland. 10 of the 15 most posinous snakes in the world are found in Australia, as well as the most poisonous jellyfish (the Box Jellyfish) which kills you within minutes. Indegenous people are thought to be the oldest culture in the world, living in Australia for over 50,000 years. In the 21st century there are approximately 150 different Indegenous languages, which has dropped from 250 since European settlement. Over 25% of people that live in Australia were born overseas. “Australia” is derived from “terra australis terra” which means unknown southern island. Ausralia´s capital city, Canberra, was created because Melbourne and Sydney couldnt decide which one should be the capital city.

The great barier reef is the largest coral reef in the world and is home to over 1´500 species of fish and 300 species of coral. Emu´s and Kangaroo´s can only move forwards and not backwards. Contrary to what the rest of the world believe, Australians don’t really drink Fosters and you generally can’t find it in bars or bottle shops. Indegenous people are now only 2% of the population of Australia. Australia was the second country in the world after New Zealand to have women´s right to vote but only in late 2017 have legalised gay marriage. Kangaroos can jump up to three times their own height. A male kangaroo is called a boomer and a female a flyer, a baby is a joey. Australia voted the Magpie as the bird of the year in 2017 even though someone loses an eye from a magpie attack approximately every year.

The largest producer of gold in the world is in Australia, in a small town in WA called Kargoolie. A platypus has enough venom to kill a small dog. Bob Hawkes, a former Prime Minister of Australia holds the world record for drinking 2.5 pints of beer in 11 seconds. The longest straight road in the world is in Australia and is 146km long. In 2011, there were approximately 34,000,000 kangaroos and they can only be found in Austrlalia. The first ever policemen in Australia were well behaved convicts. Australia has over 10,000 beaches.

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