Description Of Australia

AUSTRALIA

1-GEOGRAPHY

Australia is the sixth largest country in the world. Australia is an island, surrounded by water. It is located on the smallest continent in the world. The continent of Australia, with the island state of Tasmania, is approximately equal in area to the United States (excluding Alaska and Hawaii).
Australia has a very dramatic landscape. Australia is famous for its"outback," the remote lands of the interior.
The desert outback covers most of the interior. It is too hot, dry and barren to support many people.
Eastern Australia has large areas of grasslands, used primarily for sheep and cattle ranches.
Over 70% of Australians now live in cities or towns. Most of this population lives in the eastern and southern coasts, and around Perth in the west.
Australiaconsists of two land masses: mainland Australia and Tasmania. It lies on and extends south from the Tropic of Capricorn in the Southern Hemisphere between latitudes 10°41' and 43°39'S and longitudes 113°9' and 153°39'E.
It is bounded by the Pacific Ocean to the east, the Indian Ocean to the west, the Afarura Sea to the north, and the Southern Ocean to the south.
The nearest neighbour is PapuaNew Guinea, 200 kilometres to the north. Timor Leste is 640 kilometres to the north west, New Zealand is 1920 kilometres east, and Antartica is 2000 kilometres due south.
Australia is one of the oldest continents, and because of the effects of 250 million years of erosion it has become the flattest land mass on earth. The shape of Australia was defined by the seperation and rifting of theAustralian continent from the super-continent.
Even so, Australia has a wide variety of landforms, mostly consisting of vast, ancient crustal blocks: the western plateau approximately 300 metres above

sea level, the central eastern portion (a lowland which formed the bed of ancient seas), and the eastern highland running north and south along the eastern coastline.
The lowest elevation is Lake Eyre(16 metres below sea level) and the highest peak is Mt. Kosciuszko (2228 metres above sea level).
 Lake Eyre, itself below sea level, is located in the driest part of Australia. It holds very little water as much of it evaporates quickly in the repressive heat. 
 The Great Victoria Desert, famous for its red sand dunes, indigenous wildlife and isolation, is (250,000 sq. miles in size) and mainlya barren area of red sand hills and ridges, dry salt lakes, with very little grassland.
 One of world's most famous landforms, "Uluru," or Ayers Rock, is the largest solitary rock on the planet. Its red sandstone surface smoothed by high winds over time is revered as a holy place and called Uluru by the aboriginal people. It's 1,143 ft. (348 m) high. There are a number of differing accountsgiven, by outsiders, of Aboriginal ancestral stories for the origins of Uluru and its many cracks and fissures. One such account, taken from Robert Layton's (1989) Uluru: An Aboriginal history of Ayers Rock,[12] reads as follows: “Uluru was built up during the creation period by two boys who played in the mud after rain. When they had finished their game they travelled south to Wiputa ... Fightingtogether, the two boys made their way to the table topped Mount Conner, on top of which their bodies are preserved as boulders. “
The Great Barrier Reef is a spectacular coral reef, about 1,250 miles (2,000 km) in length. It contains the world's largest deposit of coral; not a continuous reef, but rather an irregular jigsaw puzzle of over 2,800 individual coral reefs and assorted coral cays. 
 SharkBay is one of only 14 places on the planet that meets ALL four natural criteria for World Heritage listings. Those criteria include outstanding examples of the earth's evolution, biological and ecological processes, incredible natural beauty and significant natural habitats for animal and plant species. The bay has the largest area of sea grass species in one place, and supports a rich aquatic...