Australia the Island Continent

Let me bid you a very warm welcome to HoltiesHouse Mk 2, I will endeavor on this blog site to uncover lots of interesting facts and trivia about anything and everything Australian, readers from my previous life may come across things they have read before, please excuse these duplications, they will be kept to a minimum.
The first thing we need to do is establish some perspective, Australia is an island, as it is completely surrounded by water but the land mass is so large that it has been declared a continent, I will use a map with Australia superimposed over the United States of America (less Hawaii and Alaska) and another with Europe (excluding Russia) superimposed over Australia to illustrate the comparable land areas.
Click on maps to enbiggen.


Australia and the USA are of a similar size but are vastly different in terms of population (Australia about 20 million, USA about 300 million) and also in usable land, as shown on the map I'm using as my blog header the center of Australia is either Arid or Semi Arid with only the fringe around two thirds of our coastline being good arable farmland with a "usually" reliable rainfall, there are a few green spots within the Semi Arid areas just as there are a few Arid spots in the fringe area. Conversely the center of America is rich and fertile.

This map shows clearly that Australia is nearly twice the size of the European countries shown here. It is more difficult to compare population figures in the European countries shown here but an estimate of 450 million should be reasonably accurate.

For those who have been impressed by the size of Texas (in the tales Texans tell anyway) just have
a look at the size of Western Australia!!!! Texas is approx 678,000 square Km while there is approx
2.5 million square Km in WA, 1.7 in Qld, ranging down to 230,000 square Km in Vic, 68,000 in Tas.
and a mere 2,500 square Km in the Australian Capital Territory which is home to our capital city,
Canberra.


I hope at least some of you find this of interest and will come back for more.