1. “Hey, mate! What are you looking at?”
Australia
“The Land Down Under”

2. Australia’s Land Mass 5% of the world’s landmass 6th largest country
Almost the size of the United States
About double the size of Europe
Australia’s Land Mass

3. Geographic & Climatic Features
Smallest continent
Lowest, flattest & driest continent (aside from Antarctica)
Nearly 20% of the continent is desert
Climate zones range from tropical rainforests to snow covered mountains
One of the most biologically diverse countries on the planet
Home to more than one million species of plants and animals, many of which are found nowhere else in the world
Geographic & Climatic Features

4. Australia was inhabited by Indigenous peoples who made up over 500 different clan groups
Today, they make up only 2.4% of the population
The People

5. The First Colony
New South Wales was settled as a place Britain could send their criminals because their prisons were overcrowded
Other colonies were settled by business men who went for the prospect of agriculture and availability of labor

6. Population Today Roughly 22 million people
One of the lowest population densities in the world
Population Today

7. Government Official name is the Commonwealth of Australia
Constitutional monarchy with three branches (similar to the United States)
Australia’s head of state is Queen Elizabeth II
Six individual states have power to make some of their own laws
Government

8. World’s largest coral reef wit over 3000 individual reef systems and hundreds of islands
Named one of the seven wonders of the natural world
Larger than the Great Wall of China and the only living thing on earth that is visible from space
The Great Barrier Reef

9. The Great Barrier Reef