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THE FAMILY TRAVEL MAP

CHRISTMAS ISLAND

ASHMORE AND CARTIER ISLANDS

WESTERN AUSTRALIA

NORTHERN TERRITORY

SOUTH AUSTRALIA

QUEENSLAND

NEW SOUTH WALES

VICTORIA

TASMANIA

GREAT BARRIER REEF

AUSTRALIAN CAPITAL TERRITORY

AUSTRALIAN ANTARCTIC TERRITORY

HEARD ISLAND AND McDONALD ISLANDS

JERVIS BAY TERRITORY

NORFOLK ISLAND

COCOS(KEELING) ISLANDS

SIZE: 7,741,220 sq km (2,988,902 sq mi). POPULATION: 23,232,400 people. CAPITAL: CanberraThe only country that takes up an entire continent, Australia was first settled more than 60,000 years ago by the ancestors of today’s Aboriginal people. Britain gradually colonised the land from the late 18th century onwards. The British first used the colony as somewhere to send their criminals. In time, free settlers arrived and the country grew, becoming independent of Britain in 1901. Australia is home to many strange and unusual animals that are found nowhere else on Earth, including kangaroos, koalas, duck-billed platypuses and lots of scary spiders and snakes.

AUSTRALIA IN A BOX

1. ADELAIDE2. ALICE SPRINGS3. BRISBANE4. CAIRNS5. CANBERRA6. DARWIN 7. HOBART8. MELBOURNE9. PERTH10. SYDNEY

Can you pinpoint your city? Check the numbers below and then find each on the map.

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Find your destination below and check out the fascinating facts about it. Don’t stop there! Read on to discover a whole load more

about what makes Australia awesome...

STATES AND TERRITORIES

Australia is made up of 16 areas of land, both big and small, known as states and territories. There are six states and ten territories. Five of the states and three of the territories are located on the Australian mainland. Most of the rest are islands, some of which lie thousands of kilometres from the mainland. Australia also claims to own a large chunk of Antarctica, although only a handful of other countries agree.

ASHMORE AND CARTIER ISLANDS SIZE: 5 sq km (1.93 sq mi)POPULATION: 0

•This territory is made up of just four small sandy islands around 320km (200mi) from Australia’s northwest coast.

•Although nobody lives here, the islands are regularly visited by scientists, and soldiers sometimes use Cartier Island for military exercises. Tourists have to apply for a government permit to come here.

•All sorts of animals live in the island’s waters and reefs, including sea snakes, turtles and a large marine mammal called a dugong (it’s sometimes also called a ‘sea cow’, because it looks a bit like a giant swimming cow).

•The wildlife is protected within a marine reserve that encloses a 172 sq km (66 sq mi) area around the islands.

AUSTRALIAN ANTARCTIC TERRITORY SIZE: 5,896,500 sq km (2,276,651 sq mi) POPULATION: 0 permanent (around 1,000 temporary researchers)

•Australia claims to own around 42 per cent of Antarctica, making it by far the country’s largest territory. However, only four other countries recognise this claim: the UK, New Zealand, France and Norway (all of which have their own claims to part of Antarctica).

•It’s easily Australia’s coldest territory, with much of it covered in ice over 2km (1.2mi) thick. The coldest temperature ever recorded on Earth - a super chilly -89.2°C (128.6°F) - was at a place called Vostok in Australia’s Antarctic territory in 1983.

•If all Antarctica’s ice melted, sea levels around the world would rise by over 70m (230ft), flooding many of the world’s low-lying cities.

•Antarctica has no permanent residents - it’s much too cold. However, teams of scientists from Australia (and around the world), undertake missions here, living in well-heated research bases.

•It may be too cold for humans, but plenty of animals have made the Antarctic coasts and surrounding seas their home. These include penguins, seals, sea birds, killer whales and the largest creatures on Earth: blue whales.

AUSTRALIAN CAPITAL TERRITORY SIZE: 2,358 sq km (910 sq mi)POPULATION: 395,200CAPITAL: Canberra

•This small territory lies within the much larger state of New South Wales. It was created in 1911, ten years after the country became independent from Britain, to be the site of Australia’s new capital, Canberra, which was established here in 1913.

•Outside the capital, there are a few small towns and farms as well as a large area of mountains and forests within Namadgi National Park.

•The national park is home to two of the country’s strangest

animals: the echidna (which looks a bit like a large

hedgehog) and the platypus.

These are the only two mammals in the world that lay eggs. With its duck-like beak and webbed claws, the platypus was thought to be a hoax when specimens were first brought back to Europe in the 19th century.

CHRISTMAS ISLAND SIZE: 135 sq km (52 sq mi) POPULATION: 2,000CAPITAL: Flying Fish Cove

•Don’t take a holiday here if you’re scared of crabs - they’re everywhere! Every November, around 45 million red crabs, which normally live in the island’s central forest, scuttle down to the sea to lay their eggs. There are so many that they cover the forest floor and block the island’s roads.

•The island is also home to the world’s largest crab, the coconut crab, which can grow up to 1m (3ft) long and weigh over 4kg (8.8lb). It uses its powerful pincers to break open coconuts.

•It’s a volcanic island, which rose up from the sea floor following an eruption around 60 million years ago.

•It was discovered by English sea captain William Mynors, who sailed past it on Christmas Day, 1643.

•Despite its early discovery, the island wasn’t inhabited until the late 19th century, when British settlers established a small settlement.

•Around two thirds of the island forms part of Christmas Island National Park, which is covered in thick, swampy forest.

COCOS (KEELING) ISLANDS SIZE: 14 sq km (5.4 sq mi)POPULATION: 600CAPITAL: West Island

•Throughout their history, these islands have either been called the Cocos Islands (in reference to the many coconut palms that grow here) or Keeling Island after William Keeling, the English sea captain who discovered them in 1609. The Australian authorities clearly couldn’t make up their minds which name was better so, since 1955, both have been used. The people who live here are known as Cocos Islanders.

•The territory is made up of two atolls - island rings formed when a volcano sinks beneath the ocean waves. There are 27 islands in total, but just two are inhabited: West Island and Home Island.

•The waters around the island are home to many species of colourful tropical fish. Tourists come here to dive and snorkel.

•The island’s first settlers were members of the Clunies-Ross family from Scotland in the early 19th century. The head of the family called himself the ‘King of the Cocos Islands’. The final ‘king’ was forced to sell the islands to Australia in 1978.

CORAL SEA ISLANDS SIZE: 3 sq km (1.2 sq mi) POPULATION: 4CAPITAL: Willis Island

•This territory is made up of around 50 small islands, which add up to less than 3 sq km (1.2 sq mi) of land, surrounded by 780,000 sq km (301,159 sq mi) of sea.

•There are just four inhabitants, all of whom live on the 500m (1,600ft) long Willis Island where they look after a weather-monitoring station.

•In the 19th century, many of the islands were mined for the tonnes of guano - bird poo - covering their cliffs, which was then sold as plant fertiliser.

HEARD ISLAND AND MCDONALD ISLANDS SIZE: 412 sq km (159 sq mi) POPULATION: 0

•Covered in icy glaciers and volcanoes, these islands in the deep south of the Indian Ocean are among the most isolated on Earth, They’re located over 4,000km (2,500mi) from mainland Australia, 3,830km (2,380mi) from Africa and 1,630km (1,010mi) from Antarctica, the three nearest continents.

•Having rarely been visited by humans, the islands are one of the most unspoilt environments on Earth.

•The largest island, Heard Island, is dominated by snow-covered Big Ben, a giant active volcano, over 2,745m (9,006ft) high, making it the highest mountain on Australian territory. It has erupted several times in the past few decades, sending great plumes of smoke up into the sky.

•The smaller McDonald Islands lie around 45km (28mi) to the west of Heard Island. They are the peaks of a volcano that has grown up from the sea floor. For 75,000 years, the volcano was silent. However, it began erupting again in the 1990s.

•Although there is little plant life on the islands, large colonies of seals and penguins live on the coasts of Heard Island.

JERVIS BAY TERRITORY SIZE: 70 sq km (27 sq mi) POPULATION: 400 CAPITAL: Jervis Bay Village

•Originally part of New South Wales, this tiny territory was set aside in 1915 to give the newly formed Australian Capital Territory (ACT) access to a stretch of coast where a naval base could be constructed. It’s still home to the Royal Australian Naval Base, HMAS Cresswell.

•It actually lies over 200km (120mi) from the Australian Capital Territory. A railroad was planned to link the two areas, but it was never built. Today, Jervis Bay is no longer part of the ACT and is administered by Australia’s central government.

•Around 90 per cent of the territory is taken up by the Booderee National Park and Botanic Gardens, which are run by the local Aboriginal community.

•The area is home to a great deal of wildlife, including wallabies, sea eagles and penguins (on an island off the coast). Whales and dolphins can often be spotted from the shore.

NEW SOUTH WALES SIZE: 809,444 sq km (312,528 sq mi)POPULATION: 7.8 million CAPITAL: Sydney

•Australia’s most populated state, New South Wales is also the site of its largest city, Sydney.

•Sometimes called the ‘Premier State’, New South Wales was Australia’s first state and used to be much bigger than it is now. But in the 19th century, parts were sectioned off to form new states, including Victoria and Queensland.

•Although it has been inhabited for thousands of years by Aboriginal Australians, the state was given its present name by the British explorer Captain Cook in the 1770s because its shoreline reminded him southern Wales.

•The first settlement was a penal colony where, from 1788 to 1868, Britain sent thousands of prisoners to serve out their sentences. Most had committed minor offences, such as stealing a loaf of bread - back then, the sentence in Britain for stealing goods worth more than a shilling (around AUS$8 in today’s money) was death.

•The first free settlers arrived in 1793, and the state’s population grew rapidly in the early 19th century.

•The lowest temperature recorded on mainland Australia was a very chilly -23°C (-9°F) at Charlotte Pass, New South Wales.

•The Blue Mountains are a popular tourist destination around 50km (31mi) west of Sydney. The range is well known for three giant, towering pillars known as the Three Sisters, which stand over 900m (2,950ft) high. You can visit the sisters by climbing more than 800 steps up an enormous stone staircase known as The Giant Stairway.

•It’s possible to see two of Australia’s most famous animals, kangaroos and koalas, at the Murramarang National Park. Both animals are marsupials, which means that their young grow in a special pouch on their mother’s belly.

•The official bird of New South Wales is the kookaburra. It gets its name from its distinctive call, which sounds a bit like ‘koo-ko-bur-rah’.

•According to one theory, the name Canberra means ‘meeting place’ in the language of the local Aboriginal Ngunnawal people. Many alternative names were considered including Circle City, Wheatwoolgold, Thirstyville, Kangaremu and the tongue-twisting Sydmeladperbrisho.

•It’s one of the best places to get an introduction to the country as a whole, as it’s home to the National Museum of Australia, the National Gallery of Australia, the National Portrait Gallery and the National Library.

•Most Australian cities are situated on the coast and so tend to have the same sort weather all year round. However, because Canberra is inland, it experiences four distinctly different seasons with hot summers and cold winters.

DARWIN SIZE: 3,164 sq km (1,222 sq mi) POPULATION: 142,300TERRITORY: Northern Territory (capital)

•The smallest and most northerly of Australia’s regional capitals is named after the famous British naturalist, Charles Darwin. He did stop by Australia in 1836, although at Sydney in the east rather than here on the north coast.

•It was originally named Palmerston after the 19th-century British prime minister, but was renamed Darwin in 1911.

•Every year since 1987, the city has marked the start of a transcontinental solar-powered car race. Vehicles are brought from all over the world to compete in the event, attempting to make the 3,022-km (1,878-mi) journey from Darwin all the way down to Adelaide on the south coast.

•Much of Darwin was destroyed in a devastating 1974 cyclone. The city has been heavily rebuilt since.

HOBART SIZE: 1,696 sq km (655 sq mi) POPULATION: 225,000 STATE: Tasmania (capital)

•The largest city on the island of Tasmania, Hobart is the most southerly of Australia’s state capital cities.

•The second-oldest state capital, after Sydney, it was, like many of the others, originally founded as a convict colony to house prisoners brought over from Britain.

•Prior to the arrival of the British, it had been inhabited for over 35,000 years by Aboriginal Australians.

•The city is Australia’s main link with Antarctica, thousands of kilometres to the south. Every year, scientific expeditions set out from here to explore the icy continent.

MELBOURNE SIZE: 9,991 sq km (3,858 sq mi)POPULATION: 4.7 millionSTATE: Victoria (capital)

•Australia’s second-largest city was briefly its most important. From 1901 to 1927, this was Australia’s seat of government before being replaced by the newly built Canberra.

•Founded by settlers in 1835, the city was named after the then British prime minister Lord Melbourne.

•It was originally known as Batmania, not after the superhero, but after the man who first explored the area, the Australian farmer, John Batman.

•The discovery of gold in Victoria state sparked a gold rush in 1850s that saw Melbourne expand rapidly and turned it briefly into one of the richest cities in the world.

•It’s arguably Australia’s most sporty city. It hosted the 1956 Summer Olympic Games, the first to be held outside Europe or North America, and is the home of the Melbourne Cricket Ground, the largest sports stadium in the country. Every year, it stages several major sporting events, including the Grand Final of the Australian Rules Football season; the Melbourne Cup, one of

the world’s most famous horse races; the Australian Open Tennis championship, one of big four ‘Grand Slam’ tennis events; and a Formula 1 Grand Prix.

•With 250km (160mi) of track, 24 routes and 1,763 stops, Melbourne boasts one of the world’s largest tram networks. It even has a tram restaurant: you board a restored historic tram and eat a multi-course menu while travelling the streets of Melbourne.

•People like to eat here - Melbourne is said to have more cafés and restaurants per person than any other city in the world.

•It’s home to the country’s first pizza restaurant. Toto’s opened in 1961 and is still serving slices today.

•Somebody from Melbourne is called a Melburnian.

•The theme park, Luna Park, has the oldest continuously operating roller coaster in the world. It scared its first passengers in 1912 and is still rolling up and down more than a hundred years later.

•The National Gallery of Victoria boasts the world’s largest stained-glass ceiling. It’s 51m (167ft) long and 15m (49ft) wide.

•The country’s first set of traffic lights were installed in Melbourne in 1912.

•Neighbours, Australia’s longest-running TV show, is filmed in a Melbourne suburb.

•The much-loved Australian sandwich spread, Vegemite, was invented in Melbourne in 1922 and continues to be manufactured in the city.

•According to RSPCA, there are more foxes per person in Melbourne than any other city on Earth.

PERTH SIZE: 6,418 sq km (2,478 sq mi)POPULATION: 1.9 millionSTATE: Western Australia (capital)

•Perth is one of the most isolated cities in the world. The closest Australian city, Adelaide, is over 2,200km (1,360mi) away. In fact, Perth is closer to Singapore than it is to the country capital, Canberra.

•It’s Australia’s sunniest capital, enjoying an average of 265 sunny days a year.

•Perth is home to the country’s oldest continuously operating mint, which first began producing coins in 1899.

•King’s Park in Perth’s central business district is the world’s largest inner-city park, bigger than either London’s Hyde Park or New York’s Central Park. Covering an area of 4.06 sq km (1.57 sq mi), it’s also Western Australia’s most popular tourist attraction, and is visited by more than 5 million people each year.

•First held in 1953, the Perth International Arts Festival is Australia’s oldest arts festival.

•On one night in 1962, everybody in Perth turned on their house lights to allow the American astronaut John Glenn to see the city as he passed overhead in his spacecraft. This led to Perth being given the nickname, the ‘City of Light’.

SYDNEY SIZE: 12,368 sq km (4,775 sq mi)POPULATION: 5 millionSTATE: New South Wales (capital)

•Australia’s biggest city is home to around a sixth of Australia’s entire population.

•It’s located on the banks of one of the world’s largest natural harbours.

•The area has been inhabited by Aboriginal Australians for over 30,000 years. Captain Cook became the first European to arrive here in 1770. The place where he landed had so many plants that he gave it the name ‘Botany Bay’.

•The first permanent settlement was a convict colony, established in 1788.

•Australia Day, the country’s contested national holiday on 26 January, celebrates the arrival of the first convict ship and the establishment of the settlement.

•The city was named after the British politician Lord Sydney. There’s also a Sydney in Canada that was named after him at roughly the same time. Lord Sydney never visited either.

•Built in 1793, Elizabeth Farm in the Sydney suburbs is Australia’s oldest European building.

•Somebody from Sydney is called a Sydneysider.

•The city expanded rapidly in the 20th century, particularly after World War II when people settled here from all over the world. English is the main language, but more than 250 other languages are spoken by people living here, including Arabic, Cantonese, Mandarin and Greek.

•Welcoming more than 3.5 million visitors a year, Sydney is one of the most visited cities in the world.

•Sydney’s world famous opera house was built between 1959-72. It’s topped by a series of pointed domes that are covered in more than a million white tiles. It can seat over 5,000 spectators. It went seriously over budget. It was supposed to cost AUS$7 million, but ended up costing over AUS$100 million. Whoops!

•At 1,149m (3,770ft) long and weighing around 52,800 tonnes, Sydney Harbour Bridge opened in 1932, having taken 1,400 men eight years to build. It originally cost each car 6 pence to cross. The price is now over AUS$3. The bridge was originally painted grey, as that was the only paint that was available in large enough quantities to cover the entire structure. The top of the bridge expands and contracts by up to 18cm (7in) due to changes in temperature.

•In 2000, Sydney became the second Australian city to host the Summer Olympic Games. It cost AUS$5.2 billion to stage. At that time, the 110,000-seater Olympic Stadium was the largest ever constructed.

•Standing 2,228m (7,310ft) above sea level, Mt Kosciuszko is the highest mountain on the Australian mainland. A walking path runs to its summit.

NORFOLK ISLAND SIZE: 34.6 sq km (13.4 sq mi) POPULATION: 2,300CAPITAL: Kingston

•The first thing you need to know about Norfolk Island is that, round here, cows have right of way, not cars. So, if you find one blocking your path on the road, you’ll have to wait ‘til it gets out of your way before moving on.

•This small island, lying around 1,400km (870mi) east of mainland Australia, is an extremely isolated place. Supplies arrive once a month by boat (as long as the crossing isn’t cancelled by bad weather), and there are just two flights a week from the Australian mainland.

•It was first settled by Polynesians, but was uninhabited by the time British explorers turned up in the late 18th century. The island was used as a penal colony from 1788 to 1855 before being abandoned again.

•It was resettled in 1856 by people from Pitcairn Island. These were the descendants of British men who had taken part in a famous mutiny aboard the ship Bounty near the island of Tahiti. The mutineers fled to Pitcairn Island to escape being captured by the British authorities. The arrival of the Pitcairn settlers is celebrated every year as Bounty Day.

•The island is home to many species of plant and animal that are found nowhere else. One such species, the Norfolk Island pine tree, can grow over 60m (196ft) tall, and features on the island’s flag.

•A unique species of parrot, the Norfolk parakeet, almost went extinct in the 1990s when its population fell to around 40 individuals. However, a conservation programme has since seen its numbers grow to over 300.

•There are no snakes on the island.

•Because many families on the island have the same surname, the phone books list people by their nicknames.

NORTHERN TERRITORY SIZE: 244,000 sq km (94,209 sq mi)POPULATION: 1.3 millionCAPITAL: Darwin

•This vast area is as big as France, Spain and Italy combined.

•It boasts a varied landscape, ranging from lush tropical forests and grasslands in the ‘Top End’ (as the locals call it) to dry dusty desert in the ‘Red Centre’. About two thirds of the territory receives less than 50cm (20in) of rain a year.

•The desert is home to around 200,000 camels that are the descendants of those imported in the late 19th century to help with the construction of the railways. Every July, camel races are held in the city of Alice Springs.

•The Finke River is believed to have formed 340 million years ago - more than 100 million years before the dinosaurs appeared - making it the oldest river system in the world.

•One of the country’s most famous sights, Uluru (also known as Ayers Rock), is a giant lump of sandstone rising 348m (1,142ft) above the surrounding flat landscape. At sunset and sunrise, it appears to glow a deep red.

•The Tiny town of Daley, which is home to just a couple of dozen people, is the proud owner of the country’s (and possibly the world’s) most remote set of traffic lights. There isn’t another set within 500km (300mi).

•Mining is big business round here. Commodities such as gold, silver and lead are dug out of the ground in vast quantities.

QUEENSLAND SIZE: 1,730,648 sq km (668,207 sq mi) POPULATION: 4.8 millionCAPITAL: Brisbane

•Australia’s second-largest state is around five times the size of Japan.

•It was first settled by Aboriginal people tens of thousands of years ago. Today Aboriginal people make up around 4 per cent of the population.

•The first major non-Aboriginal community was a prison colony set up in Brisbane by the British between 1825 and 1839.

•Originally part of New South Wales, Queensland became a state in its own right in 1859. It is one of two states named in honour of the then British monarch, Queen Victoria (the other, in case you’ve haven’t guessed, is Victoria).

•The state animal is the koala. These cute marsupials feed only on the leaves of eucalyptus trees, eating up to 1kg (2lbs) of greenery a day. It’s obviously tiring work, as they can also sleep for up to 18 hours a day. The name koala is an Aboriginal word meaning ‘no drink’, as the animals get almost all the water they need from the leaves.

•Perhaps the state’s most distinctive-looking animal is the purple-neck rock wallaby. It secretes dye from special glands that turns its head and neck purple.

•Queensland is also home to lungfish, a living fossil that has remained virtually unchanged since the Triassic Period 350 million years ago.

•The Great Barrier Reef, the world’s largest coral reef system, stretches for over 2,300km (1,400mi) along Queensland’s coast. Made up of more than 3,000 reefs and 6,000 islands, and encompassing an area of around 344,000 sq km (132,819 sq mi), it’s so big it can even be seen from space.It’s home to vast array of wildlife, including turtles, dolphins, sharks, tropical fish and, of course, the multicoloured corals that have built up the reefs over thousands of years.

•The Dingo Fence, the world’s longest fence, stretches for 5,614km (3,488mi) from Jimbour in Queensland right down to the South Australian Coast. It was built in the 1880s to keep wild dogs known as dingoes from attacking farm animals in the southeast of country.

•Q1, the tallest building not just in Australia, but in the whole of the southern hemisphere, is located on Queensland’s Gold Coast. It stands 337m (1,106ft) high.

SOUTH AUSTRALIA SIZE: 983,482 sq km (379,725 sq mi) POPULATION: 1.7 millionCAPITAL: Adelaide

•The driest Australian state, much of South Australia is covered in arid, dusty desert. As a result, some three quarters of the population lives in the capital, Adelaide.

•It’s a place to work up a thirst. The flavoured milk drink FUIC (Farmer’s Union Iced Coffee) is so popular in South Australia that it outsells coca-cola, making it one of the few places in the world where coke is outsold by another beverage.

• In 1946, the geologist Reg Sprigg discovered strange-looking fossils in South Australia’s Ediacara Hills. They turned out to be the remains of some of the earliest complex life forms ever found. A geological period lasting from 635-541 million years ago was named the Ediacaran Period after the discoveries.

•South Australia is home to the world’s largest cattle farm, the Anna Creek Station. Covering an area of 24,000 sq km (9,400 sq mi), it’s bigger than ten European countries, including Slovenia and Luxembourg. Planes have to be used to travel around its vast confines. At full capacity, it can accommodate more than 16,500 cows.

•John Ainsworth Horrocks was reportedly the first man to introduce a camel to Australia in 1840. He was also the first man to be killed by one. When attempting to shoot a bird, Horrocks was jogged by the camel causing him to shoot himself.

•Afghan camel drivers came over to South Australia in the 19th century to help settlers explore the desert interior. The 2,979km (1,851mi) long railway that runs from Adelaide in the south to Darwin in the north is named “The Ghan” in their honour. It takes 54 hours to travel the railway’s full distance.

•A giant fibreglass lobster known as ‘The Big Lobster’ rears up in front of a restaurant and visitor centre in the town of Kingston SE. The story goes that it was supposed to have been installed on the building’s roof but the plans got muddled so that the lobster was built 17m (56ft) high rather than 17ft (5m) high, as originally intended. Whoops!

•South Australia was the second place in the world to give women the right to vote (after New Zealand) and the first to allow women to stand for parliament.

•Australia’s longest river, the 2,508-km (1,558-mi) long River Murray, reaches the sea in South Australia. Its waters and banks are home to a wealth of wildlife, including emus, kangaroos, parrots, pelicans and black swans.

•South Australia is the world’s biggest supplier of the glittering, colourful gemstone known as opal.

•The hottest temperature ever recorded in Australia, 50.7°C (123.3°F), was at the small South Australian town of Oodnadatta in 1960.

•Lake Eyre is usually an enormous, dry salt lake. However, during rainy periods it briefly floods to become the country’s largest lake, covering an area of up to 9,500 sq km (3,668 sq mi), before drying out again.

•Between 1870-72, a 3,200-km (1,988-mi) telegraph line was built across central Australia from Port Augusta in the far south to Darwin in the far north. There it connected with an undersea cable to Java in Indonesia and from there onto Europe and Britain. It allowed quick communication between South Australia and Britain for the first time.

•Kangaroo Island, Australia’s third-largest island, lies off South Australia’s coast. Much of it is a wildlife refuge where you can see seals, dolphins and, of course, kangaroos, in their natural environment.

TASMANIA SIZE: 68,401 sq km (26,410 sq mi)POPULATION: 519,000CAPITAL: Hobart

•Tasmania consists of one large island (Australia’s largest and the 26th largest island in the world) and 334 much smaller ones off the south coast of mainland Australia.

•It was named after the Dutch explorer Abel Tasman, who became the first European to record seeing it in 1642.

•It was the site of a major penal colony in the 19th century when some 75,000 convicts were sent here to serve out their sentences. Port Arthur, the biggest prison of that era has been preserved and is now Tasmania’s most popular tourist attraction.

•Around 42 per cent of the state is protected (more than any other Australian state) to try and conserve its unique ecosystems. Tasmania has 18 national parks, and much of this lush, green island is densely forested.

•The island is home to many strange animals, including the world’s largest carnivorous marsupial, the Tasmanian Devil, which looks a bit like a small bear.

•There are some trees in southwest Tasmania that are thought to be over 4,000 years old. But these are practically youngsters compared to a group of trees on Mt Read, which have been there for 10,000 years.

VICTORIA SIZE: 227,416 sq km (87,806 sq mi) POPULATION: 6 millionCAPITAL: Melbourne

•Located in the southeast corner of the continent, Victoria is Australia’s most densely populated state.

•Before Europeans arrived in the late 18th century, more than 30 Aboriginal groups called it their home. They created many examples of rock art depicting scenes from a spiritual world known as “The Dreaming”.

•The first European settlement was a convict colony at Sullivan Bay, founded in 1803. By the 1830s, some free settlers had also arrived and begun farming.

•The population grew rapidly during a gold rush in the 1850s and 60s, as many people arrived from abroad seeking their fortunes. The largest gold nugget ever found was discovered in 1869 in the small township of Moliagul. Known as the ‘Welcome Stranger’, it weighed 72kg (192lbs) and was sold by the two men who found it for over £9,000 (around £4 million at today’s prices).

•Its lush, green landscape has led to Victoria being given the nickname, ‘The Garden State’. It has a whopping 32 botanic gardens.

•A popular tourist attraction, the Great Ocean Road runs for 243km (151mi) along the coast, passing through areas of rainforest and providing great views of the ocean.

Built between 1919-32 by soldiers who had returned from World War I, it’s considered the world’s biggest war memorial.

•One of the most notable landmarks on the Great Ocean Road is the Twelve Apostles, a group of 50m (160ft) high limestone pillars, known as stacks, that stand just off the coast. They’ve been created by waves gradually eroding away the cliffs. Despite the name, there were only ever nine stacks, and now there are just eight after one collapsed in 2005. And the others will follow eventually - the sea is currently eating away the stacks at a rate of around 2cm (1in) per year.

WESTERN AUSTRALIA SIZE: 2,529,875 sq km (976,790 sq mi) POPULATION: 2.6 millionCAPITAL: Perth

•Australia’s largest state takes up around a third of the entire continent. It’s bigger than all but a handful of countries.

•It was first inhabited by Aboriginal tribes. Stone tools dating back 35,000 years have been discovered here, and there are more than 10,000 rock carvings, some dating back over 10,000 years.

•Many different Aboriginal groups continue to live here, speaking more than 60 different languages.

•The first European settlement was established in 1829 on the Swan River, and would eventually grow into the state capital, Perth.

•One of the world’s great train journeys, the Indian-Pacific, takes passengers on a 4,352-km (2,704-mi) route right across the continent from Perth to Sydney. On the way, it runs along a 478-km (297-mi) stretch of dead-straight track, the longest such stretch in the world.

•At Ningaloo Marine Park off the northwest coast, it’s possible to swim with the world’s biggest fish - whale sharks - which come here every year to breed.

•Much of Western Australia is dusty, dry and inhospitable. But there’s also plenty of glitter in among the rocks. The state boasts the world’s largest diamond mine, the Argyle Diamond Mine, which turns out around 1,600kg (3,527lbs) of diamonds a year.

•Western Australia is also home to two of the world’s largest gold mines: the Super Pit at Kalgoorlie, and the Boddington Gold Mine. Boddington can produce around 28,350kg (62,501lbs) of gold a year.

•In 2011, the Cygnet Bay Pearl Farm in Broome produced the world’s largest spherical pearl with a diameter of 22.24mm (0.87in)

•Western Australia’s state bird is the black swan, from which the Swan River got its name. Once upon a time, Europeans used the phrase ‘as rare as a black swan’ to mean something that didn’t exist, as black swans had yet to be discovered.

•The world’s largest dinosaur tracks were discovered on Western Australia’s Dampier Peninsula in 2017. The giant 1.7m (5.5ft) prints belonged to long-necked sauropods, the largest land animals that have ever lived.

•Shark Bay provides a glimpse into Earth’s distant past. It’s home to a colony of stromatolites, rocky structures built up by a type of bacteria that has been around for more than 3.7 billion years.

CITIES Most of the people in Australia live in cities. These are mainly located on the country’s coasts where the majority of the rivers and fresh water sources are located. Much of central Australia is dry, dusty desert.

ADELAIDE SIZE: 3,258 sq km (1,258 sq mi) POPULATION: 1.3 millionSTATE: South Australia (capital)

•Australia’s fifth-most populated city was founded in 1836 and named after Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen, the German queen of the then British King William IV.

•Unlike many other Australian cities, Adelaide was planned as the capital of a freely settled province, rather than a penal colony. In fact, to show how different it was, it originally didn’t have a jail, as it was thought that only ‘honourable’ people would settle here. When quite a few ‘dishonourable’ people also turned up, a prison was built in 1841. It remained open for 147 years, during which time more than 300,000 prisoners passed through its doors. It’s now a museum and tourist attraction.

•For many years, Adelaide was home to the world’s longest one-way highway, the 21-km (13-mi) long Southern Expressway. It actually flipped direction twice a day - for ten hours you could travel one way, then for the next ten hours, the other way, which must have been confusing. Eventually the highway was expanded and, since 2014, it’s been possible to travel in both directions.

•Adelaide’s nickname is the ‘20-Minute City’ because it’s supposed to be possible to reach anywhere in the city from anywhere else in just 20 minutes (as long as you don’t hit a traffic jam).

•Costing over AUS$2.1 billion, the Royal Adelaide Hospital, which opened in 2017, is one of the most expensive buildings ever built. It’s also Australia’s largest building in terms of floor space.

•Adelaide’s Event Cinema complex is the largest in the southern hemisphere with 26 screens.

ALICE SPRINGS SIZE: 328 sq km (127 sq mi) POPULATION: 27,970TERRITORY: Northern Territory

•It may not be Australia’s biggest urban centre (it’s only the third biggest in the Northern Territory), but it’s one of the most well known because of its position - slap bang in the centre of the country. From here, it’s 1,993km (1,238mi) to Perth, 2,027km (1,260mi) to Sydney, 1,284km (798mi) to Darwin and 1,326km (824mi) to Adelaide.

•The climate here is very hot and dry. It doesn’t rain a lot, but when it does it can pour, turning roads into mud baths in a matter of hours.

•The town sits on the Todd River, which usually doesn’t have any water in it. However, every now and then, heavy rains make it flow and can sometimes cause serious flooding.

•Despite the name, there isn’t a spring. The town was built in 1862 near the site of what was thought to be a spring, but turned out to be just a temporary waterhole.

•The Arrente Aboriginal people have lived here for over 40,000 years. To them, this place is known as Mparntwe. Today they make up around 20 per cent of the town’s population. There are numerous galleries showcasing Aboriginal art.

•Alice Springs’ population grew significantly during World War II when much of Darwin’s population was evacuated here to protect them against possible Japanese attacks.

BRISBANE SIZE: 15,842 sq km (6,117 sq mi)POPULATION: 2.4 million STATE: Queensland (capital)

•Known to locals as ‘Brizzie’, this is the country’s third-largest city.

•It was chosen to be Queensland’s capital when the new state was established in 1859.

•The beaches of the Sunshine Coast (to the north) and the Gold Coast (to the south) are popular tourist destinations.

•The Aboriginal name for this area is Mian-jin which means ‘place shaped like a spike’.

•A prison operated here between 1825 and 1839 on what is now one of the city’s major shopping districts.

•The city has suffered a number of devastating floods in its history when the River Brisbane has broken its banks. At the other extreme, the Great Fire of Brisbane in 1864 destroyed much of central city, putting back its early development.

•Whales can often be spotted from Point Lookout on North Stradbroke Island.

•It’s a tall city with more than 50 skyscrapers over 100m (330ft) high in its centre.

•The popular Australian sponge cake known as a lamington was created in Brisbane. It’s named after the former governor of the state, Lord Lamington, and was probably created by his French chef.

•In World War II, the city was a major submarine port. Some 75,000 US troops were stationed here.

•In 1928, local pilot, Charles Kingsford Smith, became the first person to fly across the Pacific. The journey covered 11,566km (7,187mi) in three stages and took just under 84 hours. Smith landed in Brisbane becoming an instant national hero. Later he became first person to fly non-stop across Australia.

•Brisbane hosts Queensland’s largest cultural event, an agricultural show known officially as the Royal Queensland Show but referred to locally as ‘The Ekka’ (short for ‘exhibition’).

CAIRNS SIZE: 254 sq km (98 sq mi) POPULATION: 147,990STATE: Queensland

•This small city was founded in 1876 as a port for a gold mine on the site of a seaslug fishing camp. It was named after the then Governor of Queensland, William Wellington Cairns.

•It’s one of the best bases from which to explore the Great Barrier Reef, one of the wonders of the natural world, which lies just off its coast.

•Cairns also lies near the 1,200-sq-km (460-sq-mi) Daintree Rainforest, the largest single area of rainforest in country. It’s among the oldest rainforests on Earth and home to a great amount of wildlife, with many species found nowhere else. These include the musky rat-kangaroo, the world’s smallest kangaroo, which is just 30cm (12in) long including its tail, and looks like a cross between a rat and a wallaby.

•The Daintree is also where you’ll find one of the world’s most dangerous birds, the flightless southern cassowary. It can grow 190cm (75in) tall and weigh up to 70kg (154lb), making it the world’s second-heaviest bird after the ostrich. It looks harmless, but it has a specially adapted dagger-like claw, up to 12cm (5in) long, on the inner toe of both feet, which it uses to slash at predators. It’s been known to attack (and even kill) people who get too close. Look out for signs warning you to ‘Be Cass-o-wary’ and take the advice - stay away.

CANBERRA SIZE: 814 sq km (314 sq mi) POPULATION: 403,470TERRITORY: Australian Capital Territory (country capital)

•By the early 20th century, when Australia became independent from Britain, there were already two dominant cities: Sydney in New South Wales and Melbourne in Victoria. To prevent them arguing over which should be capital, the decision was made that it should be neither. Instead, a new city, Canberra, was built from scratch to become the nation’s capital.

•Construction began in 1913, based on plans drawn up by the American husband and wife architects Walter Burley Griffin and Marion Mahoney Griffin (she was one of the first licensed female architects in the world).

•The city was laid out around a man-made lake named after the architects, Lake Burley Griffin.

•Canberra is the seat of government, where the country’s parliament is located and where the prime minister’s official residence, known as The Lodge, is situated. It’s also home to the Royal Australian Mint.

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