Written by London Swaminathan

Post No. 14,101

Date uploaded in Sydney, Australia – 16 January 2025

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 Fifty Wonders of Australia -Part 3 (Post No.14,101)

33.Australia is also home to really speedy dragonflies. One dragonfly was recorded flying at the massive speed of 36 miles per hour (57 km per hour).

34.Australia has a population of 25 million people. That’s just under half the amount of people who live in the UK, even though Australia is about 32 times larger than the UK.

35.20 f the top 25 most venomous spiders are from Australia.

36.Wombats are Australian animals, and they have cube-shaped poo. Scientists think that this is so it doesn’t roll away.

37.Eucalyptus trees are iconic to Australia, and are a major part of the country’s landscape: 

·         Number of species

There are around 900 species of eucalyptus in Australia, which are part of the genera Eucalyptus, Corymbia, and Angophora. The tallest tree in Australia is an Eucalyptus tree. The tallest tree in the country, Centurion, is in Tasmania. It was last officially measured  over 100m.

·         Distribution

Eucalypts are found in every state and territory of Australia, except for the driest regions. They can grow in a variety of environments, from high rainfall to semiarid, and from sea level to subalpine. 

·         Uses

Indigenous Australians have used almost every part of the eucalyptus tree, including the leaves, sap, bark, and wood. 

38.The Geography of Australia

Australia is unique because, not only is it one of the biggest countries in the world, it is the only country to cover an entire continent. Whilst a lot of Australia’s land is fertile and hospitable, over a third of it is desert land. Australia is famous for its outback, which is a massive area of desert. The climate in the outback is extremely hot and dry, which means that there isn’t a lot of water or vegetation there. For this reason, very few people choose to live in the outback, as it is pretty inhospitable to life.

The climate is much more comfortable in the southwest and southeast of Australia, which is where most of the country’s cities and farms are located. The land in this part of Australia is much more fertile than the outback, so farms there grow things like wheat and grapes for wine.

39.In addition to mainland Australia, there is a wide range of small islands included within the continent of Australia. In fact, there are 8,222 islands within the marine borders of Australia. One of Australia’s most famous islands is Tasmania Island. Tasmania Island is located at the south-eastern corner of mainland Australia. It is a large, mountainous island with a very high annual rainfall, which gives it incredibly fertile soil compared to mainland Australia.

Here are some of Australia’s biggest islands. Each of these islands has a surface area larger than 1,000 km² (386.102 miles²):

Tasmania Island, Melville Island, Kangaroo Island, Groote Eylandt,

Bathurst Island, Fraser Island, Flinders Island, King Island, Mornington Island.

 Fraser Island is the world’s largest sand island. It stretches over 120 km along the southern coast of Queensland, Australia.

40.The total surface area of Australia is 7,686,850 km² (2,967,910 sq miles). This is 31.5 times larger than the surface area of the United Kingdom.

The coastline length of mainland Australia is 35,877 km (22,293 miles).

There are a total of 758 estuaries in Australia. An Estuary is a partially enclosed, coastal body of water where fresh water from rivers and streams combines with salt water from the ocean. Most of these estuaries can be found in the subtropical and tropical zones of Australia.

41.Australia is the only country in the world that has control over the largest area of ocean jurisdiction.

Throughout the entirety of Australia, there are no land borders.

42.History of Australia

People have lived in Australia for over 60,000 years. The first people who lived there were the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples. The Aboriginal Australians lived in tribes and spoke about 250 different languages. They invented tools like the boomerang, which we still associate with Australia, and the spear.

The Aboriginal Australians are the oldest living culture in the world. They have also created some amazing art throughout the centuries. This includes carvings, paintings, and depictions of nature. The main types of Aboriginal arts and crafts include dot painting, rock painting, and weaving. They usually represent the natural world because Aboriginal Australians have always had a close relationship to the natural landscape.

Dutch explorers first landed in Australia in 1606, and British settlers arrived in 1776. This is when Captain James Cook charted the east coast of Australia in his ship HM Endeavour. He called Eastern Australia ‘New South Wales’. Now, New South Wales is the name of one of the six states that make up Australia.

In 1788 Britain claimed the first of six colonies. In 1901, those six colonies joined together to form the Commonwealth of Australia. A Commonwealth country has the same King or Queen as Britain, but the monarch only has a ceremonial role.

Nowadays, Australia is governed by a democratically elected government. In 1999, there was a vote in which Australians decided against separating from the UK. However, some people are still discussing the idea of separating from the UK.

43.Australian traditions and lifestyle

Australia Day is on 26 January. This marks the anniversary of the first ships to land in New South Wales in 1788. There are barbecues, festivals, and fireworks.

The warm climate and outdoor spaces mean that people in Australia spend a lot of time outdoors. They love sports like surfing and sailing. They also invented a new sport, which is Australian rules football. This game is like a mix of basketball, rugby, and football, all in one.

In Australia, a white Christmas is impossible. Its seasons are opposite to those of the UK, so it’s summer in Australia when Christmas is celebrated. People celebrate with Carols by Candlelight, where they gather together outside to sing carols and light candles.

44.Food in Australia

Currently, the food in Australia is a combination of British cuisine and food with indigenous origins along with Mediterranean and Asian influence. One thing that Australia is known for is its variety of high-quality meat, which it is able to produce due to its wide range of natural resources.

Seafood is also very popular in Australia. High-quality seafood is easily accessible in Australia, as most of the population live close to the sea. For this reason, the seafood restaurants in Australia are some of the best in the world.

There is also a range of popular plant and animal foods in Australia known as the Bush tuckers. These foods are indigenous to the Australian bush. Some examples of bush tucker plant food are finer lemons, Kakadu plums, desert quandong, kutjera, muntries, and riberries. Some examples of bush tucker animal foods are kangaroo and emu meat, as well as the shellfish that live in the saltwater river system of Australia.

A fun fact is that the Aboriginal people of Australia actually consume wood-eating larvae as part of their traditional diet. These larvae are super high in protein, so Aboriginal people would eat them to build up their muscles and bones.

45.Australia’s top 10 exports by value are: 

• Mineral fuels: Including oil, this is the largest export at US\$125.9 billion
• Ores, slag, and ash: US\$104.4 billion
• Gems and precious metals: US\$21.4 billion
• Salt, sulfur, stone, and cement: US\$13.4 billion
• Cereals: US\$13.1 billion
• Meat: US\$12.3 billion
• Inorganic chemicals: US\$6.3 billion
• Machinery including computers: US\$5.3 billion
• Oil seeds: US\$4.5 billion
• Aluminum: US\$4.4 billion

46.Australia’s Top 10 Imports in 2023

1.        Petroleum oils (not crude): $50.75 billion

2.        Motor vehicles for passengers: $34.8 billion

3.        Motor vehicles for goods transport: $16.965 billion

4.        Electrical apparatus for telephony: $12.9485 billion

5.        Automatic data processing machines: $10.295 billion

6.        Medicaments: $8.961 billion

7.        Unwrought or semi-manufactured gold: $8.265 billion

8.        Crude petroleum oils: $7.9605 billion

9.        Blood and immunological products: $6.5975 billion

10.      Construction machinery: $4.6255 billion

47. The Sydney Opera House

The Sydney Opera House is a UNESCO World Heritage site that hosts over 1,500 performances annually. 

·         48.The outback

The outback is the remote rural areas of Australia, where there are scorching temperatures, little water, and almost no vegetation. 

·         49.The Great Dividing Range

The Great Dividing Range is a 3,700-kilometer stretch of mountain that sends water down into Australia’s most important rivers. 

·         50.The world’s oldest fossil

The world’s oldest fossil was discovered in Australia, at 3.4 billion years old. 

 —–subham—–

Tags- Facts, wonders, Australia, Part 3