8 Fun Facts You Never Knew About Australia
Australia is a huge country, in fact, a continent in itself that many people have never been to before. It's also one of the most popular countries to travel to for both business and pleasure.
Australia is a beautiful country with lots of natural beauty, but did you know that it's not the only thing that makes Australia unique? It's also home to some interesting animals, including kangaroos and koalas. But that’s still not all there is to the country. There are some interesting and fun facts about Australia that many people don't know.
In this blog post, we will discuss seven fun facts you never knew about Australia.
Fun Facts About Australia
1. The Australian continent is the smallest of Earth's landmasses and it has a population of 24 million people.
2. Every year, Australia produces enough wine to fill the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG). It also exports more wine than any other country in Oceania.
3. The Australian Outback is the world’s third-largest desert and it has no permanent population (excepting Aboriginal inhabitants). It is also known as the Great Australian desert and has an area of about 2,700,000 square kilometers.
Did you know that the Australian Outback was once used as a nuclear testing ground? From 1950 to 1963, the British and Australian governments conducted 21 atmospheric nuclear weapons tests in the area. The last of these tests released about seven times more radiation than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.
Today, much of the Australian Outback is uninhabitable due to its high levels of radioactivity. However, some Aboriginal communities do still live there.
4. There are more sheep than people in Australia. The ratio of sheep to humans is three to one, which means that for every 1 human there are 3 sheep in Australia.
5. The Great Barrier Reef is larger than any other reef in the world. The reef is located in the Coral Sea, off the coast of Queensland in northeastern Australia. It's made up of almost 3000 individual reef systems and is home to a variety of plants and animals.
6. The first inhabitants of Australia arrived about 50,000 years ago and are known as the Aboriginal people. They are believed to be descendants of the people who crossed over from Asia on a land bridge that once connected the two continents.
7. Gambling is a popular activity in Australia. In fact, Australians spend more money gambling than any other country except the United States. Online gambling is especially popular in Australia, with about $225 billion generated each year by the gambling industry.
8. The continent was actually shaped from volcanoes. That's right; most people don't realize that much of earth evolved from volcanoes beneath our feet - all seven continents we live on today were once active volcanoes.
Takeaway
These are just a few of the interesting and fun facts about Australia. There are many more that could be mentioned, but we'll leave that for another time. If you're interested in learning more, be sure to check out some of the other blog posts on our website. And if you're ever in Australia, make sure to take the time to explore this amazing country.
