Australia - Geography, Climate, Political system, Economy

Australia

It covers an area of 7 686 848 sq km and the population is 18 322 23; Australia has one of the lowest density in the world - only 2 people per 1 sq km. The capital city is Canberra (325 400) and the main ethnic groups are: British (90 %), other Europeans (5 %) and Aborigines (about 200 000).

Geography
Australia is the smallest continent in the world and lying in the Southern Hemisphere 1 between the Indian and the Pacific Oceans. There are Coral and Tasman Seas and many large islands such as Tasmania (on the south, separated by 240 km wide Bass Strait) or Papua-New Guinea (on the east-west, separated by Torres Strait) over Australia. Nearly half of the continent occupies the Great Western Plateau on the west, in central part there are also three big deserts - the Great Sandy Desert, the Gibson Desert and the Great Victoria Desert.

The Central Lowlands are mostly covered by tropic forests and savannah with occasional creeks 2 and rivers which become dry in the dry seasons as well as three large lakes - Lake Eyre, Lake Torrens and Lake Gairdner.
The Eastern Highlands are the Great Barrier Reef 3 on the north-east coast - it is the largest coral reef in the world. East part occupies the Great Dividing Range and south-east are the Australian Alps (Mount Kosciusko, 2 228 m).
Many of Australia’s rivers are fill with water only during the rainy season. The biggest are the Murray (2 575 km) and the Darling. Also most of Australian’s lakes are dry for months.

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Climate
The Australian climate is various. In the northern and north-west parties there is a tropically hot and dry atmosphere but on the other side north-east has heavy rainfalls 8 because of trade-winds 9  .
 
Political system
The full and official name for Australia is The Commonwealth of Australia. It is the independent sovereign federation of six states - New South Wales (Sydney), Victoria (Melbourne), South Australia (Adelaide), Queensland (Brisbane), Western Australia (Perth), Tasmania (Hobart) and two territories (Australian Capital Territory and the Northern Territory). It is the member of Commonwealth with Elizabeth as the head represented by the Governor-General. It follows the British system so the executive power has the Australian Prime Minister and the Cabinet and legislature is the Federal Parliament.

Important events in history
The first (original) inhabitants of this country were the Australian Aborigines, who lived there for over 40,000 years. The existence of this continent was believed long ago in the Ancient (by the Greek astronomer and geographer Ptolemy) and its acquired the name from the Latin term ‘Terra Australis’ - South Land. Australia was discovered by Dutch navigator Abel Tasman in 1642. In 1770 Captain James Cook explored eastern coast and the first white settlement was made up in 1788 of 730 British prisoners 10  and the first British colony was called English New South Wales. During 1850s and 1890s immigration and the economic growth increased because of ‘gold fever’. In 1901 the six colonies became the Commonwealth of Australia.

Places of interest
In my opinion, the most popular Australian attraction is the Ayers Rock (Uluru), a huge rock in the centre of Australia. It is the holy place of all Australian Aborigines. It is the most spectacular to observe this rock during all the day because it changes its colour in each day’s time from pink to brown to silver-grey. One of the biggest Australia’s tourist attraction is the Great Barrier Reef with its 23 000 km of  corals of all colour. Sydney is the biggest Australian city, founded by English settlers. The business centre of this city is in Port Jackson, the biggest market with wool. We can recognised here old houses, which were built in Victorian style as well as big glass modern skyscrapers in Downtown. The most famous attraction in Sydney are The Opera House which looks like a large white sailing-  ship 11  or the Harbour Bridge, 140 meters above a sea level. There can be 6 000 cars, 28 000 people and 128 trains in the same time.

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Economy
There are big reserves of minerals and metals (mainly coal, bauxite and zinc), but deposits 12 of gold have been completely exploited 13 . Australia is one of the top exporters of beef, lamb and high quality wool (the biggest producer in the world) and wheat 14 . Other agriculture items are e.g. cotton, fruits and vegetables.