|
|
Caring About Our Country
Answering your questions about Australia . . .
Monday, August 1, 2005
How Big Is Australia?
Bruce Lawford asked why we didn't include the Australian Antarctic territory which increases Australia's total size to 13,641,824 square km. If we did, it would make Australia the second largest country in the world.
When we checked our research we found our numbers are correct. The Australian Antarctic territory should NOT be included, but we should have explained why and we've updated the page as a result.
There are 7 nations (Chile, France, Argentina,
 Australia, Britain, New
Zealand, & Norway) who claim land in the Antarctic with some claims
overlapping. The Antarctic Treaty of 1961 has put all territorial claims on hold for the duration of the treaty.
Until all the land claims are resolved, no one actually owns Antarctica right now so no one includes Antarctica in
their country's total land size.
We may be 6th in the world, but that's still pretty big.
Thursday, June 30, 2005
Big Things
Someone's got our kangaroo
Did you know there are around 60 million kangaroos and 113 million sheep in Australia? That means we have 3 kangaroos and 6 sheep for every person living here.
The local council limits us to 2 dogs per house so we doubt we can have our 3 kangaroos and 6 sheep.
Who's bigger - Uluru or Mt. Augustus ?
Gianluca wrote us that other websites listed the world's largest monolith as Mt. Augustus not Uluru.
Those websites are wrong. Uluru in the Northern Territory IS the world's largest monolith. Yes, Mt. Augustus in Western Australia is twice as high but it's a monocline not a monolith.
What's the difference?
Uluru (monolith) is a single very big boulder. Mt. Augustus (monocline) is a layer of rock pushed up above the surrounding land and attached to the layers beneath. (We've updated our site with the explanation.)
Either way, they're both really big and amazing to see.
 Interesting Information?
Someone you know may love hearing about it.
Send this page to a friend.
|
|
|
