Australia

•    Australia is the smallest continent in the world.
•    Sixth largest country in the world after Russia, Canada, China, the US and Brazil.
•    It is situated between the Pacific and the Indian Oceans in the southern hemisphere.
•    The name comes from Latin Terra Australis = southern land as it used to be called.
•    The Australian flag consists of a small Union Jack in the top left corner on a blue background and the Southern Cross constellation. There is a seven-pointed star; the Commonwealth star represents the six states and one point is for the territories.
History:
•    The original inhabitants - the Aborigines - arrived from Asia about 40,000 years ago when Australia wasn't a separate island. They used boomerangs for hunting. Now they live in reserves. These inhabitants arrived on foot before the Ice Age.
•    Australia became an island 20,000 years ago.
•    The island was discovered by Captain James Cook in 1770.
•    He landed in Botany Bay in today's Sydney and explored the eastern coast. The Dutch seaman Abel Tasman discovered Tasmania. The first European settlers were mostly convicts.
Geography:
•    There are mostly plains in Australia and a great part of the surface is desert - the Great Sandy Desert and the Great Victoria Desert.

•    Mountains: Australia has the Australian Alps and the Great Dividing Range on the eastern coast. Ayers Rock, or Uluru, is the largest piece of rock in the world and it has a special meaning for the Aborigines. The other rock formations are Mt Olga/ Kata Tjuta and Mt Augustus. Other mysterious mountains are e.g. the MacDonnell Ranges near Alice Springs and Flinders Ranges in South Australia.
•    The highest mountain is Mount Kosciusko in the Australian Alps discovered by a Polish scientist.

•    Water: The largest rivers are the Murray and the Darling.
•    Important lakes include Lake Eyre, Lake Torrens and Lake Gairdner.
Climate:
•    The climate may seem strange - Australian seasons are the opposite of the northern hemisphere. Summer starts in December, autumn in March, winter in June and spring in September.

•    N. Parks: Australia has more than 2,000 national parks and nature reserves, protected wilderness areas of natural and environmental importance that range from desert landscape to high mountains to coastal dunes and rainforests. No less than 13 areas are on the UNESCO's World Heritage List, something of which not many countries can boast.
•    Kakadu NP – NP east of Darwin, Aboriginal rock paintings, crocodiles, kakadus
•    Great Barrier Reef – world largest coral reef (longer than 2000 km) visible form space, rich marine life, tropical fishes, popular with skin-dives
Animals and plants:
As the island is separate from the rest of the world, Australia has a lot of unique animals like kangaroo, koala, emu, echidna, kiwi, cockatoo, dingo (this one is not original, like rabbits and sheep), wombat, etc.
Platypus is a very strange animal - it's a mammal, but it has a beak and webbed feet and lays eggs.
Typical plants of this country include eucalyptus and the national flower is wattle.
Sheep’s farms: called ,,stations”, produce one quarter of all wool in the world, wool cutters are called ,,sheerers”
Nowadays:
There are about 18 million inhabitants in the country.
The majority is of British origin and most of them live on the eastern coast where the density is the highest. On the other hand, areas ha the "outback" are practically uninhabited. In total Australia has the lowest density in the world - only 2 people to a square kilometre.
Schools of the air and flying doctors:
Many of the children who live here cannot get to a school given the immense distances involved and therefore have to receive instruction at home via radio. 25 radio schools attend to about 2,000 children aged between six and eleven. 90 minutes of instruction by radio per workday; written homework and examinations are sent out by post, and direct meetings in a classroom occur only once a year. There are age limits. Once pupils have completed primary school by radio, they have to go to a boarding school, living either at the school or with relatives in that town.
Flying Doctors. Many sick people cannot be expected to endure the strains of a long-distance journey that can take a full day, and so it's the doctors that have to fly in.
Today, the Royal Flying Doctor Service has about 40 light aircraft of its own and flies way over seven million air kilometres per year in order to tend to 140,000 patients. There are fixed surgery hours, the only difference being that the doctor flies in. None of this costs the patients a cent, and the same generally goes for tourists taken ill in the Outback. The state covers 50 per cent of the costs, the rest is financed by donations

The Australians like playing rugby and Australian football. Cricket is another popular game.

Political system
Australia is a member of the British Commonwealth of Nations.
It is a dominion with the Queen as the head of the country.
Its official name is the Commonwealth of Australia.
This country is divided into 6 states and 2 territories
•    Western Australia - Perth
•    Queensland - Brishbane
•    New South Wales - Sydney
•    Victoria - Melbourne
•    South Australia - Adelaide
•    Tasmania - Robart
•    Northern Territory - Darwin
•    Australian Capital Territory - Canberra

Places of interest:
The capital is Canberra - the name being of aboriginal origin meaning "meeting place".

The largest and the oldest city is Sydney
•    Largest city, famous for its beaches (e.g. Bondi Beach) and Mediterranean – like climate, sometimes called ,,the Paris of the Pacific)
•    Sydney Opera – performing arts centre, looks like waves breaking on the shore or like sailing boats, built in 1970s, designed by a Danish architects.
•    Its typical site is the Harbour Bridge

The second largest city is Melbourne.
•    Second largest city, financial centre, centre of Australian football, cricket, horse racing, tennis and golf, the Royal Botanic Garden
Other cities include Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide and Hobard.

Tasmania is an island south of Australia. It is named after the explorer Abel Tasman. The island is sometimes called "the apple isle". It is home to a rare animal - Tasmanian devil - a carnivorous marsupial that cannot be found anywhere else.