As of 17 May 2023, the population of Australia is estimated to be 26,483,900.
Australia is one of the world's most urbanised countries in the world. (most people live and work in cities)
Most of Australia's population
lives close to coastlines.
The earliest accepted first arrivals of Aboriginal Australians to the Australian continent is about 65,000 years ago, most likely from the islands of Indonesia and New Guinea.
In 2019, 30% of the Australian resident population was born overseas.
In the first Australian Census in 1901 Christians were 96.1% of the population.
Over 250 Aboriginal Australian languages are thought to have existed when Europeans first
arrived in Australia.
A Dutch ship called the
Duyfken was the first European vessel recorded, to
visit Australia's shore in 1606.
People 25–54 years make up 41.35% of Australia's population (male 4,944,587 /female 4,760,752) (2018)
In March 2019, there were 43,320 adults imprisoned in Australia.
From 1907 to 2016, the death rate of males and females in Australia has decreased by 71% and 76%, respectively.
In Australia, a male born in 2018–2020 has an
average lifespan of 81.2 years and a female 85.3 years.
The life expectancy of an Australian male born in 1890 was only 50 years.
In the late 1930s one in ten Australians had a telephone, and one in eight owned a motor vehicle.
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| Wall Telephone - Automatic Residence Set, circa 1920. Source: Museums Victoria |
In the 2021 census there were 122,494 people estimated as homeless.
The Age Pension was first introduced by the Commonwealth Government in 1908.
In 1980, the average house price was around $76,500.
In 2020, the average house in Sydney costs more than $1.1m.
Sydney's population has grown by 70% in the last 50 years.
The population of Australia increased from 4 million in 1901 to 24 million in 2016.
Tasmania has the
highest home-ownership rate at 70%, and the Northern Territory the lowest at 46%.
Australia is located in the Southern Hemisphere, between the Indian and Pacific Oceans.
Australia is the driest of all inhabited continents.
Larrikin is an Australian English term meaning "a mischievous young person, an uncultivated, rowdy but good hearted person". (was reported in an English dialect dictionary in 1905)
Eshay is a slang expression for youth who wear sportswear, including bumbags and Nike shoes, and have mullets. (slang derived from Pig Latin)
The Age Pension was first introduced by the Commonwealth Government in 1908.
There are 66 recognised species of venomous snakes on the Australian continent.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics' National Health Survey from 2017–18 showed that 67 per cent of Australian adults were overweight or obese.
The NSW town of Tamworth was the first
place in Australia to supply electricity to the public with street lighting on the 9th of November 1888.
The Education Act of 1872 was the first of its kind in the world, with education becoming free and compulsory for all children aged 6-15 years.
The Australian Aboriginal didgeridoo is played with vibrating lips to produce a continuous drone while using a special breathing technique called circular breathing.
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| Australia Queensland. Kuranda. Noah's Ark styled building, where they sell didgeridoos and local Doongal Aboriginal art. Anne and David |
A songline, also called dreaming track, marks the route, followed by local "creator-beings" during the Dreaming, across the land or sky.
Dr David Warren, an Australian scientist, invented the flight data recorder (black box). (1953)
James Harrison of Geelong, Australia, was the first to invent and patent a mechanical
system to create ice for refrigeration in 1855.
Boomerangs (after a Dharug word for a returning throw stick) have been found all over the world, including India (named valai tadis). Australian boomerangs, dated to about 10,000 years ago, were found in Wyrie Swamp, SA, in 1973. A 23,000-year-old mammoth tusk carved in a shape similar to the boomerang was discovered in Poland in 1986.
Budj Bim, a dormant volcano in South Western Victoria, erupted around 30,000 years ago, and the lava flow created
channels that the Gunditjmara people developed into weirs and eel traps about 6,600 years ago.
Captain Cook's diaries mention releasing a boar and a sow on Bruny Island, Tasmania, in 1777. There were no signs of the pigs when the Baudin expedition (French) stopped by in 1802.
