Oceania · Australia and New Zealand
Australia is both a continent and a country, covering an area of about 7,692,000 square kilometers, making it the sixth-largest country in the world. Indigenous Australians, or Aboriginal peoples, have lived on the continent for at least 65,000 years according to archaeological evidence, representing one of the oldest continuous human cultures on Earth. The country was colonized by Britain starting in the late 18th century, and in 1901 the six colonies united into a single federation. The official language is English, and a substantial share of the population consists of immigrants and their descendants, contributing to diverse urban culture.
The Sydney Opera House, opened in 1973 based on designs by Danish architect Jørn Utzon, and the Sydney Harbour Bridge are among the city's best-known structures, with the Opera House itself listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site. Uluru, a massive sandstone rock formation in the country's interior, is sacred to the Anangu Aboriginal people and has been a UNESCO World Heritage site since 1987, together with the nearby Kata Tjuta rock formations. The Great Barrier Reef, the world's largest living coral reef system, stretches more than 2,300 kilometers along the Queensland coast and has been a UNESCO World Heritage site since 1981. Melbourne, the country's second-largest city, is known for its Victorian-era buildings and extensive tram network, one of the largest operating tram systems in the world.
A significant portion of Australia's wildlife is endemic, meaning it occurs nowhere else in the world in its natural state, including the kangaroo, the koala, and the platypus, the latter one of the only egg-laying mammals in the world. The Blue Mountains, near Sydney, with their sandstone gorges and eucalyptus forests, are also a UNESCO World Heritage site. On Tasmania, the Tasmanian Wilderness, a UNESCO World Heritage area, preserves rainforest and alpine landscapes and is home to the Tasmanian devil. Local cuisine is strongly multicultural, with fresh seafood common alongside a well-established barbecue tradition, and native ingredients known as "bush tucker," such as macadamia nuts and Kutjera (bush tomato), increasingly appearing on restaurant menus.
The Australian flag consists of three elements: the Union Jack in the upper left corner, referencing the country's colonial history and its ties to the Commonwealth; beneath it, a seven-pointed white star known as the Commonwealth Star, whose six points represent the original six colonies, now states, with the seventh point representing the federal territories. On the right side of the flag appears the Southern Cross constellation, shown with five white stars, indicating the country's location in the southern hemisphere, a motif also found in similar form on the flags of other countries in the region, such as New Zealand and Papua New Guinea. The current flag was selected in 1901, following the federation of the six colonies, through a public design competition, though it was only formally confirmed by law in 1954.
Australia consists of six states and two main territories. The six states are New South Wales (capital Sydney), Queensland (capital Brisbane), South Australia (capital Adelaide), Tasmania (capital Hobart), Victoria (capital Melbourne), and Western Australia (capital Perth). The two main territories are the Australian Capital Territory, home to the national capital, Canberra, and the Northern Territory, whose capital is Darwin. Canberra was purpose-built as the national capital in the early 20th century, after a political dispute arose between Sydney and Melbourne over which city should hold that role.
Australia administers four external territories located outside the mainland, which fall directly under the federal government without their own state or provincial status. Christmas Island and the Cocos (Keeling) Islands lie in the Indian Ocean near Indonesia, with Christmas Island known for the annual mass migration of its red crabs. Norfolk Island, in the Pacific Ocean between New Zealand and Australia, originally served as a penal settlement in the 18th and 19th centuries, and part of its population descends from the Bounty mutineers, who were resettled there from Pitcairn Island in 1856. Heard Island and McDonald Islands, in the southern Indian Ocean, are uninhabited volcanic territories home to Australia's only active volcano, Big Ben, and have been a UNESCO World Heritage site since 1997.
The fossil remains of a series of lakes and sand formations that date from the Pleistocene can be found in this region, together with archaeological evidence of human occupation dating from 45–60,000 years ago. It is a unique landmark in the study of human evolution on the Australian continent. Several well-preserved fossils of giant marsupials have also been found here.
This unique archaeological and ethnological reserve, located in the Northern Territory, has been inhabited continuously for more than 40,000 years. The cave paintings, rock carvings and archaeological sites record the skills and way of life of the region’s inhabitants, from the hunter-gatherers of prehistoric times to the Aboriginal people still living there. It is a unique example of a complex of ecosystems, including tidal flats, floodplains, lowlands and plateaux, and provides a habitat for a wide range of rare or endemic species of plants and animals.
The Great Barrier Reef is a site of remarkable variety and beauty on the north-east coast of Australia. It contains the world’s largest collection of coral reefs, with 400 types of coral, 1,500 species of fish and 4,000 types of mollusc. It also holds great scientific interest as the habitat of species such as the dugong (‘sea cow’) and the large green turtle, which are threatened with extinction.
A remarkable example of isolated oceanic islands, born of volcanic activity more than 2,000 m under the sea, these islands boast a spectacular topography and are home to numerous endemic species, especially birds.
In a region that has been subjected to severe glaciation, these parks and reserves, with their steep gorges, covering an area of over 1 million ha, constitute one of the last expanses of temperate rainforest in the world. Remains found in limestone caves attest to the human occupation of the area for more than 20,000 years.
This site, comprising several protected areas, is situated predominantly along the Great Escarpment on Australia’s east coast. The outstanding geological features displayed around shield volcanic craters and the high number of rare and threatened rainforest species are of international significance for science and conservation.
This park, formerly called Uluru (Ayers Rock – Mount Olga) National Park, features spectacular geological formations that dominate the vast red sandy plain of central Australia. Uluru, an immense monolith, and Kata Tjuta, the rock domes located west of Uluru, form part of the traditional belief system of one of the oldest human societies in the world. The traditional owners of Uluru-Kata Tjuta are the Anangu Aboriginal people.
This area, which stretches along the north-east coast of Australia for some 450 km, is made up largely of tropical rainforests. This biotope offers a particularly extensive and varied array of plants, as well as marsupials and singing birds, along with other rare and endangered animals and plant species.
At the most westerly point of the Australian continent, Shark Bay, with its islands and the land surrounding it, has three exceptional natural features: its vast sea-grass beds, which are the largest (4,800 km2) and richest in the world; its dugong (‘sea cow’) population; and its stromatolites (colonies of algae which form hard, dome-shaped deposits and are among the oldest forms of life on earth). Shark Bay is also home to five species of endangered mammals.
K’gari lies just off the east coast of Australia. At 122 km long, it is the largest sand island in the world. Majestic remnants of tall rainforest growing on sand and half the world’s perched freshwater dune lakes are found inland from the beach. The combination of shifting sand-dunes, tropical rainforests and lakes makes it an exceptional site.
Riversleigh and Naracoorte, situated in the north and south respectively of eastern Australia, are among the world’s 10 greatest fossil sites. They are a superb illustration of the key stages of evolution of Australia’s unique fauna.
Macquarie Island (34 km long x 5 km wide) is an oceanic island in the Southern Ocean, lying 1,500 km south-east of Tasmania and approximately halfway between Australia and the Antarctic continent. The island is the exposed crest of the undersea Macquarie Ridge, raised to its present position where the Indo-Australian tectonic plate meets the Pacific plate. It is a site of major geoconservation significance, being the only place on earth where rocks from the earth’s mantle (6 km below the ocean floor) are being actively exposed above sea-level. These unique exposures include excellent examples of pillow basalts and other extrusive rocks.
The Greater Blue Mountains Area consists of 1.03 million ha of sandstone plateaux, escarpments and gorges dominated by temperate eucalypt forest. The site, comprised of eight protected areas, is noted for its representation of the evolutionary adaptation and diversification of the eucalypts in post-Gondwana isolation on the Australian continent. Ninety-one eucalypt taxa occur within the Greater Blue Mountains Area which is also outstanding for its exceptional expression of the structural and ecological diversity of the eucalypts associated with its wide range of habitats. The site provides significant representation of Australia's biodiversity with ten percent of the vascular flora as well as significant numbers of rare or threatened species, including endemic and evolutionary relict species, such as the Wollemi pine, which have persisted in highly-restricted microsites.
The 239,723 ha Purnululu National Park is located in the State of Western Australia. It contains the deeply dissected Bungle Bungle Range composed of Devonian-age quartz sandstone eroded over a period of 20 million years into a series of beehive-shaped towers or cones, whose steeply sloping surfaces are distinctly marked by regular horizontal bands of dark-grey cyanobacterial crust (single-celled photosynthetic organisms). These outstanding examples of cone karst owe their existence and uniqueness to several interacting geological, biological, erosional and climatic phenomena.
The Royal Exhibition Building and its surrounding Carlton Gardens were designed for the great international exhibitions of 1880 and 1888 in Melbourne. The building and grounds were designed by Joseph Reed. The building is constructed of brick and timber, steel and slate. It combines elements from the Byzantine, Romanesque, Lombardic and Italian Renaissance styles. The property is typical of the international exhibition movement which saw over 50 exhibitions staged between 1851 and 1915 in venues including Paris, New York, Vienna, Calcutta, Kingston (Jamaica) and Santiago (Chile). All shared a common theme and aims: to chart material and moral progress through displays of industry from all nations.
Inaugurated in 1973, the Sydney Opera House is a great architectural work of the 20th century that brings together multiple strands of creativity and innovation in both architectural form and structural design. A great urban sculpture set in a remarkable waterscape, at the tip of a peninsula projecting into Sydney Harbour, the building has had an enduring influence on architecture. The Sydney Opera House comprises three groups of interlocking vaulted ‘shells’ which roof two main performance halls and a restaurant. These shell-structures are set upon a vast platform and are surrounded by terrace areas that function as pedestrian concourses. In 1957, when the project of the Sydney Opera House was awarded by an international jury to Danish architect Jørn Utzon, it marked a radically new approach to construction.
The property includes a selection of eleven penal sites, among the thousands established by the British Empire on Australian soil in the 18th and 19th centuries. The sites are spread across Australia, from Fremantle in Western Australia to Kingston and Arthur's Vale on Norfolk Island in the east; and from areas around Sydney in New South Wales in the north, to sites located in Tasmania in the south. Around 166,000 men, women and children were sent to Australia over 80 years between 1787 and 1868, condemned by British justice to transportation to the convict colonies. Each of the sites had a specific purpose, in terms both of punitive imprisonment and of rehabilitation through forced labour to help build the colony. The Australian Convict Sites presents the best surviving examples of large-scale convict transportation and the colonial expansion of European powers through the presence and labour of convicts.
The 604,500 hectare marine and terrestrial property of Ningaloo Coast, on the remote western coast of Australia, includes one of the longest near-shore reefs in the world. On land the site features an extensive karst system and network of underground caves and water courses. Annual gatherings of whale sharks occur at Ningaloo Coast, which is home to numerous marine species, among them a wealth of sea turtles. The terrestrial part of the site features subterranean water bodies with a substantial network of caves, conduits, and groundwater streams. They support a variety of rare species that contribute to the exceptional biodiversity of the marine and terrestrial site
The Budj Bim Cultural Landscape, located in the traditional Country of the Gunditjmara people in south-eastern Australia, consists of three serial components containing one of the world’s most extensive and oldest aquaculture systems. The Budj Bim lava flows provide the basis for the complex system of channels, weirs and dams developed by the Gunditjmara in order to trap, store and harvest kooyang (short-finned eel – Anguilla australis). The highly productive aquaculture system provided an economic and social base for Gunditjmara society for six millennia. The Budj Bim Cultural Landscape is the result of a creational process narrated by the Gunditjmara as a deep time story, referring to the idea that they have always lived there. From an archaeological perspective, deep time represents a period of at least 32,000 years. The ongoing dynamic relationship of Gunditjmara and their land is nowadays carried by knowledge systems retained through oral transmission and continuity of cultural practice.
Murujuga is a deeply storied land and seascape located in northwest Australia. It encompasses the Burrup Peninsula, the Dampier Archipelago, surrounding marine areas and the submerged landscape. Murujuga is shaped by the Lore — rules and narratives put in place to create the Country — and the enduring presence of the Ngarda-Ngarli, Traditional Owners and Custodians of the site. The property holds profound cultural and spiritual significance, reflecting over 50,000 years of continuous care and management by Traditional Law that has adapted to the changing needs of Country over periods of dramatic climatic and environmental change. Murujuga is renowned for its dense concentration of archaeological and spiritual sites that reflect the interaction between people and place over thousands of generations. Its extraordinary rock art assemblage records a complex system of Lore and Traditional Law, features unique motifs and demonstrates artistic and technical mastery.
Data: UNESCO WHC · CC BY-SA 4.0
Sydney is the kind of city where you can spend a whole day just wandering around the harbour and never get bored. The white sails of the Opera House, the steel arch of the Harbour Bridge, and the water glittering between them look familiar from photos, but seeing it in person is a different thing. I walked through the main spots and put together what's actually worth seeing if you only have a few days here.
The capital of Australia is Canberra.
The area of Australia is 7,692,024 km².
The population of Australia is 27,196,812.
The currency of Australia is Australian dollar (AUD).
The official language of Australia: English.
Australia: Left-hand traffic.
Yes, Australia is a member of the United Nations.