Trivia Pills: 10 interesting facts about Australia
These small snippets are extracted from longer posts on Australia. Be sure to check out the Australia page for more information and articles.
history
#1 – The Great Emu War
In 1932 Australia declared war! On Emus.
In an attempt to curtail the large bird population, the army started an organized campaign to limit their numbers.
Fun fact: they lost as the effort and ammunition used were economically disadvantageous and sending large regiments to gun down individual Emus was not cost-effective.
There were multiple attempts but all failed. A different strategy of placing bounties on Emus was more successful and more than 57,000 bounties were collected.
history
#2 – The Sydney-Melbourne rivalry and the capital of Canberra.
The capital of Australia is the relatively small city of Canberra. The city already existed as a small settlement but at the beginning of the 20th century, plans were made to make it the capital of the Australian Capital Territory. To this day, only 400,000 people live in Canberra.
Generally, the most obvious choice would have been one of the two major cities: Sydney or Melbourne. However, these two cities have long-standing rivalries that exist still today and neither would have accepted the other becoming the capital, although Melbourne was the capital on a temporary basis from 1901 to 1927 while Canberra was being “built”.
Fun fact: Section 125 of the Constitution specifies that the capital must be placed in a Commonwealth territory within New South Wales but at least 100 miles (160 km) from Sydney.
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#3 – The Great Barrier Fence for dingoes is more extensive than the the Great Barrier Reef, and the Great Wall of China.
You heard that right. Spanning more than 5,000 km across almost a third of the country, the manmade fence to protect sheep and the fertile south-eastern part of the country from dingoes and other pests, the Dingo Fence is longer than the Great Barrier Reef (2300 km) and the Great Wall of China (3,460 km) in terms of straight distance.
Also, a common myth is that the Great Wall of China can be seen from space. This is not true but the Great Barrier Reef can. It is the largest single structure made by living organisms and is made up of more than 3000 individual reefs and 900 islands, housing over 350 species of corals and over 1500 species of fish.
society
#4 – Sparsely inhabited but crowded in cities. Also a lot of kangaroos.
Australia’s landmass (7.7 million square kilometers) is about the same size as the contiguous states of the US. Yet it has less than 10 times as many people, with a population of just 25 million. There are almost twice as many kangaroos (44 million) and three times as many sheep.
More than 90 percent of Australia’s population lives within 100 kilometers of the coast, leaving the center sparse and mostly uninhabited.
This makes Australia a country with one of the highest degrees of urban concentration in the world, whereas on the other hand, it has one of the lowest population densities, with on average only 3 people per square kilometer.
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#5 – 2.5 km of Uluru is underground
Uluru or Ayer’s Rock, is the largest single rock monolith in the world (some debate this, indicating Mt. Augustus, also in Australia, as the largest one, while others consider Mt. Augustus not a rock made of a single material).
Uluru sits casually in the middle of the country in the Red Centre, surrounded by deserts and scrubland. It is a two-time UNESCO World Heritage Site, appearing on both cultural and natural lists.
It is estimated that a very large part of Uluru extends 2.5 km under ground and re-emerges 20 km away near the Olgas.
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#6 – A unique landmass
Australia is the only country that is also an entire continent. It is the smallest continent and the world’s largest island. Australia is also the flattest and driest continent and there are no active volcanoes.
Fraser Island is the largest island in the world made up entirely of sand.
society
#7 – The most culturally diverse nation in the world.
Australia is well known to be a country of immigrants (for example, Melbourne is the city with the largest percentage of Greek people, after Athens).
Australia is the most culturally diverse nation on Earth and there are more than 300 languages spoken.
Of Australians born overseas, the most common country of birth after England is now China (including Hong Kong).
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#8 – A country of laws
In 1902, Australia was the second country in the world to give women the right to vote (after New Zealand). Also, voting is mandatory in Australia and those who don’t vote are heavily penalized. The seat belt law while driving was first passed in Australia.
history
#9 – Holding the oldest civilization on the planet but one of the last to be “discovered”.
Indigenous Australians have lived on the continent for over 65,000 years, making the Australian aboriginals the oldest known civilization existing on the planet.
However, Australia was one of the last countries and continents to be “discovered” by western settlers in 1606, together with New Zealand (the most recent is Antarctica, which was never seen before 1820).
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#10 – 80% of the animals are unique to Australia
They say that everything in Australia is trying to kill you. While that is far from the truth the country hosts a unique biodiversity with 80% of the species being unique to the continent.
When it comes to poisons, nothing quite beats Australia, with its species of snakes, spiders and fish holding the records of most venomous species on the planet.
history
Bonus: Trying to sell New Zealand
Not so much a fact about Australia as a fun fact about the internet from simpler and more fun times. In 2006, a man from Newcastle created an eBay auction to sell the entire country of New Zealand. To add insult to injury, the auction started at 0.01 AUD.
It reached $3,000 before the auction was closed by site administrators.
