Australia

Australia is the smallest continent situated between the Pacific and Indian Oceans. It was explored in 1770 by Robin Cook. It has about 7,5 million square kilometres. It’s a dominition belonging to the British Commonwealth of Nations. Official head of the state is Queen Elisabeth II. represented by governor general. The country is divided into 6 states and 2 territories> New South Wales {Sidney}, Victoria {Melbourne}, Queensland {Brisbane}, South Australia {Adelaine}, Western Australia {Perth}, Tasmania {Hobart}, Territory of Camberra and Northern Territory.

Australia is very densely populated, only one inhabitant per square kilometre. And it has about 15 million inhabitants. This is because some areas are completely dry. There are two big desserts there> Great Sandy dessert and Victoria Dessert and only two big rivers the Murray and the Darling. The highest mountain is Mt. Kosciusko. There are 3 big lakes there : Lake Eyre, Lake Torres, Lake Gairdner.

Around 85 per cent people live in urban areas mainly along the south-west coast. Desserts are uninhabited. 95 per cent of inhabitants has British origin, 3 per cent are Europeans and 1.5 per cent are aborigines. Australian English is spoken here. Camberra is the capital and Sydney is the largest city.

It is quite rich country. Gold, silver, opals, copper, zinc and iron are found here. Australia has highly developed agricultural industry which is based on sheep rearing. Mutton and wool form its main export. Only 7 % of population work in agriculture, 30 % in industry and 32.6 % in services. Among the main trading partners belongs Japan, the USA, the UK, New Zealand. The national currency is Australian Dollar, and the GDP is 10 000$.

Australia is famous for it’s unique fauna and flora. We can see there kangaroos, koalas, parrots, black swans, patibus, ekidna, nocturnal animals and marsupials. And from flowers cangaroo paw, eucalyptus tree and waratak.

Sydney

Is the largest Australian city with 3 mil inhabitants. It has very modern city surrounded with a lot of parks and green places and it has the most beautiful deep-water harbour. We can find there many interesting places like Mrs Macquarie’s Chair, the area called Rocks and attractive terraced houses in Paddington.