Travels with Olga: Australia Fun Facts

Australia is the lowest, flattest, and oldest continental landmass on Earth, and it has had a relatively stable geological history. Geological forces such as tectonic uplift of mountain ranges and clashes between tectonic plates occurred mainly in Australia's early prehistory, when it was still a part of Gondwana. Its highest peak is Mount Kosciuszko at 7,310 feet, which is relatively low in comparison to the highest mountains on other continents.

Charles Rowland Twidale, an Australian geomorphologist from the University of Adelaide. estimates that between 10% and 20% of Australia's modern landscapes formed during the Mesozoic era (250-66 million years ago) when the continent was part of Gondwana.

Australia is situated in the middle of the tectonic plate, and therefore currently has no active volcanism. Minor earthquakes which produce no damage occur frequently, while major earthquakes measuring greater than magnitude 6 occur on average every five years. The terrain is mostly low plateau with deserts, rangelands and a fertile plain in the southeast. Tasmania and the Australian Alps do not contain any permanent icefields or glaciers, although these may have existed in the past. The Great Barrier Reef, by far the world's largest coral reef, lies a short distance off the north-east coast.

Climate

By far the largest part of Australia is arid or semi-arid. A total of 18% of Australia's mainland consists of named deserts, while additional areas are considered to have a desert climate based on low rainfall and high temperature. Only the south-east and south-west corners have a temperate climate and moderately fertile soil. The northern part of the continent has a tropical climate: part is tropical rain forests, part grasslands, and part desert.

Demography

The population of Australia is estimated to be 26,660,800 as of August 2023. Australia is the 55th most populous country in the world and the most populous Oceanian country. Its population is concentrated mainly in urban areas, particularly on the Eastern, South Eastern and Southern seaboards, and is expected to exceed 30 million by 2029.

Australians have settled in several capital cities and their suburban satellites at various points along a vast coastline. A significant immigrant population occupied these places with relatively little dispute and few inner city ghettos. Australia’s mean population density is 2 square miles, one of the lowest in the world.

The largest city is Sydney at 5,259,764. Melbourne, the second largest at 4,976,157, is expected to surpass Sydney in the next decade.

he Australian Bureau of Statistics no longer collects data on race, but does ask each Australian resident to nominate up to two ancestries each census. These ancestry responses are classified into broad standardized ancestry groups. In the 2021 census, the most commonly nominated individual ancestries as a proportion of the total population were:

English (33%)
Australian (29.9%)
Irish (9.5%)
Scottish (8.6%)
Chinese (5.5%)
Italian (4.4%)
German (4%)
Indian (3.1%)
Aboriginal (2.9%)
Greek (1.7%)
Filipino (1.6%)
Dutch (1.5%)
Vietnamese (1.3%)
Lebanese (1%)

The vast majority of Australians speak English at home, with the exception of Aboriginal Australians and first-generation immigrants. Although Australia has no official language, English has always been the de facto national language and the only common tongue.

At the 2021 Census, 38.9% of the population identified as having "no religion", up from 15.5% in 2001. The largest religion is Christianity (43.9% of the population). The largest Christian denominations are the Roman Catholic Church (20% of the population) and the Anglican Church of Australia (9.8%). Multicultural immigration since the Second World War has led to the growth of non-Christian religions, the largest of which are Islam (3.2%), Hinduism (2.7%), Buddhism (2.4%), Sikhism (0.8%), and Judaism (0.4%).

Government

The Australian Government, also known as the Commonwealth Government, is the national government of Australia, a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy. Like other Westminster-style systems of government, the Australian Government is made up of three branches: the executive, the legislative, and the judicial.

The prime minister of Australia is the head of government of the Commonwealth of Australia and is accountable to federal parliament under the principles of responsible government.

Anthony Albanese has been prime minister since May 23, 2022. He has been leader of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) since 2019 and the member of parliament (MP) for Grayndler (New South Wales) since 1996. Albanese previously served as the 15th deputy prime minister under the second Kevin Rudd government in 2013, and held various other ministerial positions in the governments of Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard from 2007 to 2013.

Albanese was born in Sydney to an Italian father and an Irish-Australian mother who raised him as a single parent. He attended the University of Sydney to study economics. He joined the Labor Party as a student, and before entering Parliament worked as a party official and research officer. Albanese was elected to the House of Representatives at the 1996 election. After Labor's victory in the 2007 election, he was appointed Leader of the House.

Ceremonial logo and coat of arms

Australia Day -- January 26

Australia Day is the official national day of Australia. Observed annually on January 26, it marks the 1788 landing of the First Fleet, and raising of the Union Flag by Arthur Phillip, at Sydney Cove in New South Wales.

Warlpiri woman and NITV Indigenous affairs reporter Rachael Hocking represents an alternative view of Australia Day that some people hold:

"The story of this continent did not begin when a lieutenant sailed along the coast in 1770. It goes back more than 60,000 years and some 21 million sunsets. Until this country comes to terms with that history, and the trauma that followed, then there will be many people who refuse to participate in this country’s so-called Australia Day."

Sports

Sports play an important social and cultural role in Australia with more than 90% of adults having an interest in sport. English is the most common language in Australia. Australians enjoy a very high rate of private property ownership. Australians have a preponderance to engage in gambling, experiencing the largest per capita losses in the world.

Botany

Baron Ferdinand von Mueller (1825-96) was Australia's most prominent 19th century scientist. Born in northern Germany, he suffered from ill health, and sought a warmer climate on the advice of his doctor. At age 22, Mueller and his two sisters sailed to Adelaide and arrived in December 1847. In 1852 Mueller went to Melbourne where he was appointed government botanist in 1853. He began intensive work on the local flora, and began a series of expeditions to other parts of Victoria. He found that many species had potential for industrial and medical applications, such as acacia for its wood, tannin and gum. In 1854 he was appointed a commissioner for the Melbourne Exhibition. He was also active in the amalgamation of the Victorian Institute for the Advancement of Science into the Philosophical Society. The following year he was appointed botanist to the North West Australia Expedition, which left Sydney in July 1855. The Expedition travelled nearly 5,000 miles in 16 months. Mueller observed some 2,000 species, of which about 800 were new to Australian botany. He contributed significantly to the seven volumes of Flora Australiensis, the first comprehensive work on Australian flora.

Food

Australians seem to be conscious of good food that provides good health. Grill'd is a franchise restaurant that offers healthy grilled burgers, chicken, lamb, and plant-based products along with fries, salads, and various chip dips. Drinks include Pepsi products as well as many fruit sodas.

Someone in our group asked our guide what typical Aussie food is, and he replied that it is everyone else's. Although the British influence lives on in Australia, the influx of other cultures, particularly those of Asia, are found everywhere we went. Pubs, however, have a consistent fare of burgers, chicken parmigiana, Cæsar salad, French fries, pizza, prawns, fish and chips, meat pie, nachos, and penne pasta with creamed basil sauce.

Our hotel breakfasts were the same everywhere we went: scrambled eggs, pork & beans, sautéed mushrooms, grilled tomatoes, bacon, and sausages. They also had cereals, fruit, and yogurt. After three weeks of indulging myself, I found that I missed the simple French breakfast of baguette with jam (confiture) and coffee or tea. Needless to say, we never went hungry during our journeys--and we enjoyed every bite.

Australian songs

National Anthem