Australia

Continent, island or mainland?

Due to its remote location on the world map, Australia is often referred to as an island. Depending on the map model, the two-dimensional representation also appears distorted. Without the relation to other parts of the world, the idea of an island is quite understandable. In fact, the 7.6 million km² land mass of Australia's main island alone is around three times the size of Greenland.

Depending on the definition and source, Australia is also considered a continent. However, this categorization has been increasingly rejected in recent decades and Australia is more and more often referred to as a country within Oceania. The United Nations combines Australia, its smaller island territories and New Zealand into one region "Australia and New Zealand" within the greater Oceania region. Often "Australia and New Zealand" are also located outside Oceania. In other variants, only New Zealand belongs to Oceania.

An island is surrounded by water. However, as this ultimately applies to all land masses, continents have been excluded from this definition without further ado. So as soon as Australia is considered a continent, it is by definition no more an island than America.

Most important cities

City	Federal State	Population
Canberra / Capital	Australian Capital Territory	454,000
Brisbane	Queensland	1,264,000
Gold Coast	Queensland	634,000
Logan City	Queensland	327,000
Geelong	Victoria	271,000
Paramatta	New South Wales	251,000
Sydney	New South Wales	215,000
Townsville	Queensland	196,000
Toowoomba	Queensland	175,000
Newcastle	New South Wales	169,000
Cairns	Queensland	169,000
Melbourne	Victoria	154,000
Bendigo	Victoria	121,000
Ballarat	Victoria	113,000
Darwin	Northern Territory	85,000
Mandurah	Western Australia	83,000
Launceston	Tasmania	67,000
Maitland	New South Wales	67,000
Hobart	Tasmania	56,000
Perth	Western Australia	30,000
Adelaide	South Australia	26,000

The difference between the urban area and the city proper alone can be considerable. Sydney, for example, has an urban population of 4,857,000. However, the actual proper city is much smaller with only 215,000 inhabitants. The difference to metropolitan regions, i.e. conurbations with several cities, is even greater.

Political indicators

Political stability:	◈
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Death penalty:	abolished in 1985

Existing trade agreements

• APEC - Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation
• RCEP - Regional, comprehensive economic partnership
• TPP - Trans-Pacific Partnership

Alliances

• ADB - Asian Development Bank
• Commonwealth of Nations
• G20 - Group of Twenty
• OECD
• UN - United Nations
• UNESCO
• WTO - World Trade Organization

Dependent territories