Geography of Australia: some things that shocked me!

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ASHOOR

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Every now and then, I pick a specific country and read about their geography, as I have huge interest in this aspect of learning about different cultures, landscapes, and environments. This week, I started reading about Australia! Being a big country, I have always had a fascination with the whole landscape of this country. Also, in interacting with people online - especially here - I have seen names like Melbourne, NSW, Victoria, Sydney, Brisbane, Canberra (few people have a clue this is the capital), Adelaide and Darwin etc ( I believe I first heard about these last two from Bani here

Anyway, so although I had some knowledge, I didn't know about Australian states and what they are. Just realized that Sydney is part of NSW (New South Wales state), while Melbourne is part of the state of Victoria. In total, Australia has 6 states. But for a country this big, there should have been a lot more? But I guess it is easier to geographically divide it this way.

But what I found confusing is how the city of Canberra is located in its own administrative region and is not part of any of these 6 states. But even more confusing, this region is within the state of NSW, while it is a separate state called Australian Capital Territory (ACT), which is an enclave within the state of New South Wales (NSW)? would this be correct?

So in other words, this would be like the Vatican being in the city of Rome, while being a separate country, or almost like Washington D.C which is not a state. I did some search on this and this is what I found:

"While Vatican City is an independent city-state and Washington D.C. is a federal district, both are enclaves that are not part of any state or territory within their respective countries. Similarly, Canberra is located within the Australian Capital Territory and serves as the national capital but is not part of any state in Australia."
But you know what shocked me about Australia, and I almost feel dumb not knowing this? That not only that Tasmania is one of these 6 states, but that it is an island! How the hell have I never noticed this when looking at the map? I have heard about the 'Tasmanian Devil' but never realized that it is a region, or an island. Now I need to read about this island and learn more about it. The thing is, I have never heard anyone here or from people I know say they have been to this place?

Last but not least, I found those 3 states of South Australia (SA), Western Australia (WA) and Northern Territory mysterious and captivating, given how they are in the middle, or so far away from the known south western coast and cities of Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra. Imagine the drive to go from the westernmost point in Western Australia, all the way to the capital or Sydney in the Southeast?

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Also, Perth is the most isolated city in the world. The closest city to it outside of Australia is Jakarta. And yeah, Australia is pretty huge. Just as big as contiguous US.


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Cascade said:
Also, Perth is the most isolated city in the world. The closest city to it outside of Australia is Jakarta. And yeah, Australia is pretty huge. Just as big as contiguous US.


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Very interesting! Didn’t notice Perth was all the way at the other side of the other big cities like Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra! It is indeed so isolated.

Curious, I wanted to see the driving distance between Perth and Melbourne and wow it is almost 3,500 KM and some 36 hours of driving!!!! Wow 😯
 
So just looked it up, the furthest two cities from each other is Sydney and Darwin which are 4,271 miles apart (6875 KM!)

To put this into prospective, it is like driving from Los Angeles, all the way to Anchorage, Alaska.

Or the equivalent of sailing the Atlantic Ocean from Cape Verde in Western Africa to Brazil’s eastern cost!
 
Lots of people from the US & Canada thinks Australia is a very backward country with nothing but Desert and Rural areas, they don't know that we have Big Cities with big Sky scrappers.

I myself was shocked at my own City when I was attending a Work conference and took a photo from a high level floor. I was shocked how many new buildings and high rises have been built in the last 10 years alone. Take a look at some of those photos. They are only from last Week!
 

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Northern Territory and Australian Capital Territory are NOT states. They don't have the same status as a state. For example, NT has 2 senators, whilst every Australian state has 10 senators. Also, whilst NT has a government, the federal government is still in charge, whilst states have their own independent governments.

To give an idea about distances, if you live in Darwin, flying to Sydney, Melbourne, Perth and Singapore takes the same amount of time. Flying to Bali is really fast, as is flying to Dili (Timor Leste). Darwin feels more like a southern Asian city than a northern Australian city, due to airline prices being unkind to domestic travel, and the closer proximity with places of interest like Dili, Bali and Singapore.

By the way, just north of Hobart (capital of Tasmania), there is a tiny little town called Bagdad. Before anyone asks, I have been there. I took a photo with a street sign there as that was pretty much the most interesting part of the whole town.

If you want to ever see natural beauty, Western Australia and Northern Territory are the places to visit. The west coast of Australia is the most beautiful part of the world in my opinion. And by and large untouched.
 
For some reason, I thought it was Eddie that started this topic. Mis-read it completely, and realised it was none other than Canadian Ashoor that started it. No wonder he didn't know that Tasmania was an island.

First thing you need to know, it was Dutchman, Dirk Hartog who was the first white man to have "discovered" Western Australia (Hence Australia's first name was New Holland). He claimed Western Australia for Holland and left the rest to Spain if they wanted it as per an agreement Spain and Holland had back then. Western Australia went as far as the eastern border of modern day South Australia. If you look, that border is in line with the border of Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. Indonesia was once called Dutch East Indies. The agreement between Holland and Spain was that they would not claim anything on the other side of that line of longitude.

In 1770, Captain James Cook, along with Joseph Banks were the first white men to "discover" the East Coast of Australia. As Spain had never laid claim to this land, it was the British who decided to claim it for themselves.

Over time, the Dutch decided that they had no use for Western Australia (the French tried to claim it a few times for themselves), so eventually, all of Australia became under British rule.

Oh and Tasmania was also "discovered" by a Dutchman named Abel Tasman. He initially called it Van Dieman's Land after his boss, but it was later re-named Tasmania after the man who "discovered" it. In the 1930s, the Zionists tried to buy Tasmania from the rest of Australia after they could not buy Uganda. The Australian government actually had balls back then and told the Zionists to get stuffed.
 
Eddie Yousif said:
Lots of people from the US & Canada thinks Australia is a very backward country with nothing but Desert and Rural areas, they don't know that we have Big Cities with big Sky scrappers.

I myself was shocked at my own City when I was attending a Work conference and took a photo from a high level floor. I was shocked how many new buildings and high rises have been built in the last 10 years alone. Take a look at some of those photos. They are only from last Week!
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bautiful pictures Eddie, this looks like Chicago or other world class U.S cities!
 
Crocodile Bani said:
Northern Territory and Australian Capital Territory are NOT states. They don't have the same status as a state. For example, NT has 2 senators, whilst every Australian state has 10 senators. Also, whilst NT has a government, the federal government is still in charge, whilst states have their own independent governments.

To give an idea about distances, if you live in Darwin, flying to Sydney, Melbourne, Perth and Singapore takes the same amount of time. Flying to Bali is really fast, as is flying to Dili (Timor Leste). Darwin feels more like a southern Asian city than a northern Australian city, due to airline prices being unkind to domestic travel, and the closer proximity with places of interest like Dili, Bali and Singapore.

By the way, just north of Hobart (capital of Tasmania), there is a tiny little town called Bagdad. Before anyone asks, I have been there. I took a photo with a street sign there as that was pretty much the most interesting part of the whole town.

If you want to ever see natural beauty, Western Australia and Northern Territory are the places to visit. The west coast of Australia is the most beautiful part of the world in my opinion. And by and large untouched.
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Thanks for the insights Bani, and wow interesting there is a 'Bagdad' in Tasmania!

Speaking of which , it is baffling how big Australia is, yet doesn't have a lot of mountain! I could be wrong, but that is what I have known, though never researched it.
 
Crocodile Bani said:
For some reason, I thought it was Eddie that started this topic. Mis-read it completely, and realised it was none other than Canadian Ashoor that started it. No wonder he didn't know that Tasmania was an island.

First thing you need to know, it was Dutchman, Dirk Hartog who was the first white man to have "discovered" Western Australia (Hence Australia's first name was New Holland). He claimed Western Australia for Holland and left the rest to Spain if they wanted it as per an agreement Spain and Holland had back then. Western Australia went as far as the eastern border of modern day South Australia. If you look, that border is in line with the border of Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. Indonesia was once called Dutch East Indies. The agreement between Holland and Spain was that they would not claim anything on the other side of that line of longitude.

In 1770, Captain James Cook, along with Joseph Banks were the first white men to "discover" the East Coast of Australia. As Spain had never laid claim to this land, it was the British who decided to claim it for themselves.

Over time, the Dutch decided that they had no use for Western Australia (the French tried to claim it a few times for themselves), so eventually, all of Australia became under British rule.

Oh and Tasmania was also "discovered" by a Dutchman named Abel Tasman. He initially called it Van Dieman's Land after his boss, but it was later re-named Tasmania after the man who "discovered" it. In the 1930s, the Zionists tried to buy Tasmania from the rest of Australia after they could not buy Uganda. The Australian government actually had balls back then and told the Zionists to get stuffed.
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I had no idea about most, if not all of this, especially the discoverer of Tasmania being of Dutch origin!

Very interesting information, thanks a lot for sharing.
 
As my former boss used to say about his home town of Melbourne, "If you don't like the weather, don't panic, it will change in 10 minutes time".
 
ASHOOR said:
I just came across this!

Did you know? Melbourne is closer to Antarctica than it is to Darwin!!! o_O

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Yep. And look at that ocean between southern Australia and Antarctica. It's no wonder why we (well Melbourne) can have cool 14C days in summer that Toronto would rarely see in July. Polar blasts reach us so easily. Sydney thankfully is protected by the mountain range, so we get a foehn effect during such blasts.

Australia during summer polar blasts (yep, we get polar vortexes in the darn summer lmao):

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