poverty rate Poverty is the state of having few material possessions or little

of Australia exceeds 13.6% of the population, encompassing 3.2 million. It also estimated that there were 774,000 (17.7%) children under the age of 15 living in relative poverty. The

Australian dollar The Australian dollar ( sign: $; code: AUD) is the currency of Australia, including its external territories: Christmas Island, Cocos (Keeling) Islands, and Norfolk Island. It is officially used as currency by three independent Pacific Is ...

is the national currency, which is also shared with three Island states in the Pacific:

Kiribati Kiribati (), officially the Republic of Kiribati ( gil, ibaberikiKiribati),Kiribati
''The Wor ...

Nauru Nauru ( or ; na, Naoero), officially the Republic of Nauru ( na, Repubrikin Naoero) and formerly known as Pleasant Island, is an island country and microstate in Oceania, in the Central Pacific. Its nearest neighbour is Banaba Island in ...

, and

Tuvalu Tuvalu ( or ; formerly known as the Ellice Islands) is an island country and microstate in the Polynesian subregion of Oceania in the Pacific Ocean. Its islands are situated about midway between Hawaii and Australia. They lie east-northea ...

Australian government debt :''Throughout this article, the unqualified term "dollar" and the $ symbol refers to the Australian dollar.'' The Australian government debt is the amount owed by the Australian federal government. The Australian Office of Financial Management, ...

, about $963 billion, exceeds 45.1% of the country's total GDP, and is the world's eighth-highest. Australia had the second-highest level of household debt in the world in 2020, after Switzerland. Its house prices are among the highest in the world, especially in the large urban areas. The large service sector accounts for about 71.2% of total GDP, followed by the industrial sector (25.3%), while the

agriculture sector The primary sector of the economy includes any industry involved in the extraction and production of raw materials, such as farming, logging, fishing, forestry and mining. The primary sector tends to make up a larger portion of the economy in de ...

is by far the smallest, making up only 3.6% of total GDP. Australia is the world's 21st-largest exporter and 24th-largest importer. China is Australia's largest trading partner by a wide margin, accounting for roughly 40% of the country's exports and 17.6% of its imports. Other major export markets include Japan, the United States, and South Korea. Australia has high levels of competitiveness and economic freedom, and is ranked eighth in the

Human Development Index The Human Development Index (HDI) is a statistic composite index of life expectancy, education (mean years of schooling completed and expected years of schooling upon entering the education system), and per capita income indicators, w ...

. , it is ranked twelfth in the

Index of Economic Freedom The ''Index of Economic Freedom'' is an annual index and ranking created in 1995 by The Heritage Foundation and ''The Wall Street Journal'' to measure the degree of economic freedom in the world's nations. The creators of the index claim to t ...

and nineteenth in the

Global Competitiveness Report The ''Global Competitiveness Report'' (GCR) is a yearly report published by the World Economic Forum. Since 2004, the ''Global Competitiveness Report'' ranks countries based on the Global Competitiveness Index, developed by Xavier Sala-i-Martin an ...

. It attracted 9.5 million international tourists in 2019, and was ranked thirteenth among the countries of

Asia-Pacific Asia-Pacific (APAC) is the part of the world near the western Pacific Ocean. The Asia-Pacific region varies in area depending on context, but it generally includes East Asia, Russian Far East, South Asia, Southeast Asia, Australia and Paci ...

in 2019 for inbound tourism. The 2021 ''

Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Report The ''Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Report'' was first published in 2007 by the World Economic Forum (WEF). The 2007 report covered 124 major and emerging economies. The 2008 report covered 130 countries, the 2009 report expanded to 133 count ...

'' ranked Australia seventh-highest in the world out of 117 countries. Its international tourism receipts in 2019 amounted to $45.7 billion.

Energy

In 2003, Australia's energy sources were coal (58.4%), hydropower (19.1%), natural gas (13.5%), liquid/gas fossil fuel-switching plants (5.4%), oil (2.9%), and other renewable resources like wind power, solar energy, and bioenergy (0.7%). During the 21st century, Australia has been trending to generate more energy using renewable resources and less energy using fossil fuels. In 2020, Australia used coal for 62% of all energy (3.6% increase compared to 2013), wind power for 9.9% (9.5% increase), natural gas for 9.9% (3.6% decrease), solar power for 9.9% (9.8% increase), hydropower for 6.4% (12.7% decrease), bioenergy for 1.4% (1.2% increase), and other sources like oil and waste coal mine gas for 0.5%. In August 2009, Australia's government set a goal to achieve 20% of all energy in the country from renewable sources by 2020. They achieved this goal, as renewable resources accounted for 27.7% of Australia's energy in 2020.

Science and technology

In 2019, Australia spent A$35.6 billion on

research and development Research and development (R&D or R+D), known in Europe as research and technological development (RTD), is the set of innovative activities undertaken by corporations or governments in developing new services or products, and improving existi ...

, allocating about 1.79% of GDP. A recent study by

Accenture Accenture plc is an Irish-American professional services company based in Dublin, specializing in information technology (IT) services and consulting. A ''Fortune'' Global 500 company, it reported revenues of $61.6 billion in 2022. Accentu ...

for the Tech Council shows that the Australian tech sector combined contributes $167 billion a year to the economy and employs 861,000 people. The country's most recognized and important sector of this type is mining, where Australia continues to have the highest penetration of technologies, especially drones, autonomous and remote-controlled vehicles and mine management software. In addition, the Australian recent startup ecosystem is growing annually at rates of 5.8%, and the Sydney and Melbourne ecosystems are already valued at $25 billion. Australia consistently has ranked high in the Global Innovation Index (GII). In 2021, Australia ranked 25th out of the 132 economies featured in the GII 2021, down from being 22nd in 2019. With only 0.3% of the world's population, Australia contributed 4.1% of the world's published research in 2020, making it one of the top 10 research contributors in the world.

CSIRO The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) is an Australian Government agency responsible for scientific research. CSIRO works with leading organisations around the world. From its headquarters in Canberra, CSIRO ...

, Australia's national science agency, contributes 10% of all research in the country, while the rest is carried out by universities. Its most notable contributions include the invention of

atomic absorption spectroscopy Atomic absorption spectroscopy (AAS) and atomic emission spectroscopy (AES) is a spectroanalytical procedure for the quantitative determination of chemical elemlight) by free atoms in the gaseous state. Atomic absorption spectroscopy is based ...

, the essential components of

Wi-Fi Wi-Fi () is a family of wireless network protocols, based on the IEEE 802.11 family of standards, which are commonly used for local area networking of devices and Internet access, allowing nearby digital devices to exchange data by radio waves ...

technology, and the development of the first commercially successful

polymer banknote Polymer banknotes are banknotes made from a synthetic polymer such as biaxially oriented polypropylene (BOPP). Such notes incorporate many security features not available in paper banknotes, including the use of metameric inks. Polymer banknot ...

Demographics

Australia has an average

population density Population density (in agriculture: standing stock or plant density) is a measurement of population per unit land area. It is mostly applied to humans, but sometimes to other living organisms too. It is a key geographical term.Matt RosenberPopu ...

of persons per square kilometre of total land area, which makes it one of the most sparsely populated countries in the world. The population is heavily concentrated on the east coast, and in particular in the south-eastern region between

South East Queensland South East Queensland (SEQ) is a bio-geographical, metropolitan, political and administrative region of the state of Queensland in Australia, with a population of approximately 3.8 million people out of the state's population of 5.1 million. Th ...

to the north-east and

Adelaide Adelaide ( ) is the capital city of South Australia, the state's largest city and the fifth-most populous city in Australia. "Adelaide" may refer to either Greater Adelaide (including the Adelaide Hills) or the Adelaide city centre. The dem ...

to the south-west. Australia is highly urbanised, with 67% of the population living in the Greater Capital City Statistical Areas (metropolitan areas of the state and mainland territorial capital cities) in 2018. Metropolitan areas with more than one million inhabitants are

Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mounta ...

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/ Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a metro ...

Brisbane Brisbane ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Queensland, and the third-most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a population of approximately 2.6 million. Brisbane lies at the centre of the South ...

Perth Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia. It is the fourth most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a population of 2.1 million (80% of the state) living in Greater Perth in 2020. Perth is ...

and

. In common with many other developed countries, Australia is experiencing a demographic shift towards an older population, with more retirees and fewer people of working age. In 2018 the

average age This article is a list of countries by median age. Methodology The median age is the index that divides the entire population into two numerically equal age groups, one younger than that age and the other older than that age. It is the only in ...

of the Australian population was 38.8 years. In 2015, 2.15% of the Australian population lived overseas, one of the lowest proportions worldwide.

Ancestry and immigration

Australian Residents by Country of Birth 2021 Census

Between 1788 and the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

, the vast majority of settlers and immigrants came from the

British Isles The British Isles are a group of islands in the North Atlantic Ocean off the north-western coast of continental Europe, consisting of the islands of Great Britain, Ireland, the Isle of Man, the Inner and Outer Hebrides, the Northern Isl ...

(principally

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel, the Irish Sea, and St George's Channel. Ireland is the s ...

and

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to ...

), although there was significant immigration from

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...

and

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwee ...

during the 19th century. In the decades immediately following the Second World War, Australia received a large wave of immigration from across

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

, with many more immigrants arriving from

Southern Southern may refer to: Businesses * China Southern Airlines, airline based in Guangzhou, China * Southern Airways, defunct US airline * Southern Air, air cargo transportation company based in Norwalk, Connecticut, US * Southern Airways Express, M ...

and

Eastern Europe Eastern Europe is a subregion of the European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural, and socio-economic connotations. The vast majority of the region is covered by Russia, whi ...

than in previous decades. Since the end of the

White Australia policy The White Australia policy is a term encapsulating a set of historical policies that aimed to forbid people of non-European ethnic origin, especially Asians (primarily Chinese) and Pacific Islanders, from immigrating to Australia, starting i ...

in 1973, Australia has pursued an official policy of

multiculturalism The term multiculturalism has a range of meanings within the contexts of sociology, political philosophy, and colloquial use. In sociology and in everyday usage, it is a synonym for " ethnic pluralism", with the two terms often used interchang ...

, and there has been a large and continuing wave of immigration from across the world, with

Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an are ...

being the largest source of immigrants in the 21st century. Today, Australia has the world's eighth-largest immigrant population, with immigrants accounting for 30% of the population, the highest proportion among major Western world, Western nations. 160,323 permanent immigrants were admitted to Australia in 2018–2019 (excluding refugees), whilst there was a net population gain of 239,600 people from all permanent and temporary immigration in that year. The majority of immigrants are skilled, but the immigration program includes categories for family members and refugees. In 2020, the largest foreign-born populations were those born in England (3.8%), India (2.8%), Mainland China (2.5%), New Zealand (2.2%), the Philippines (1.2%) and Vietnam (1.1%). The Australian Bureau of Statistics does not collect data on race (human categorization), race, but asks each Australian resident to nominate up to two ancestry, ancestries each Census in Australia, census. These ancestry responses are classified into broad standardised ancestry groups. At the 2021 census, the number of ancestry responses within each standardised group as a proportion of the total population was as follows:Cultural diversity data summary
2021. Australian Bureau of Statistics. 57.2% European Australians, European (including 46% Northwestern Europe#Ethnographic definitions, North-West European and 11.2%

and

an), 33.8% Demographics of Oceania, Oceanian, 17.4% Asian Australians, Asian (including 6.5% South Asia, Southern and Central Asia#Demographics, Central Asian, 6.4% East Asia, North-East Asian, and 4.5% Southeast Asia, South-East Asian), 3.2% Demographics of the Middle East and North Africa, North African and Middle Eastern, 1.4% Americas#Demography, Peoples of the Americas, and 1.3% Sub-Saharan Africa#Demographics, Sub-Saharan African. At the 2021 census, the most commonly nominated individual ancestries as a proportion of the total population were: At the 2021 census, 3.2% of the Australian population identified as being Indigenous Australians, Indigenous —

Aboriginal Australians Aboriginal Australians are the various Indigenous peoples of the Australian mainland and many of its islands, such as Tasmania, Fraser Island, Hinchinbrook Island, the Tiwi Islands, and Groote Eylandt, but excluding the Torres Strait ...

and

Torres Strait Islanders Torres Strait Islanders () are the Indigenous Melanesian people of the Torres Strait Islands, which are part of the state of Queensland, Australia. Ethnically distinct from the Aboriginal people of the rest of Australia, they are often groupe ...

Language

Although Australia has no official language, English is the ''de facto'' national language. "English has no de jure status but it is so entrenched as the common language that it is de facto the official language as well as the national language."

Australian English Australian English (AusE, AusEng, AuE, AuEng, en-AU) is the set of varieties of the English language native to Australia. It is the country's common language and ''de facto'' national language; while Australia has no official language, Eng ...

is a major variety of the language with a distinctive accent and lexicon, and differs slightly from other varieties of English in grammar and spelling."The Macquarie Dictionary", Fourth Edition. The Macquarie Library Pty Ltd, 2005. General Australian serves as the standard dialect. At the 2021 census, English was the only language spoken in the home for 72% of the population. The next most common languages spoken at home are Mandarin Chinese, Mandarin (2.7%), Arabic language, Arabic (1.4%), Vietnamese language, Vietnamese (1.3%), Cantonese (1.2%) and Punjabi language, Punjabi (0.9%). Over 250 Australian Aboriginal languages are thought to have existed at the time of first European contact, of which fewer than twenty are still in daily use by all age groups. About 110 others are spoken exclusively by older people. At the time of the 2006 census, 52,000 Indigenous Australians, representing 12% of the Indigenous population, reported that they spoke an Indigenous language at home. Australia has a sign language known as Auslan, which is the main language of about 10,112 deaf people who reported that they use Auslan language at home in the 2016 census.

Religion

Australia has no state religion; Section 116 of the Australian Constitution prohibits the Federal Government of Australia, federal government from making any law to establish any religion, impose any religious observance, or prohibit the free exercise of any religion. At the 2021 Census, 38.9% of the population identified as having Irreligion in Australia, "no religion", up from 15.5% in 2001. The largest religion is Christianity (43.9% of the population). The largest Christian denominations are the Catholic Church in Australia, Roman Catholic Church (20% of the population) and the Anglican Church of Australia (9.8%). Multicultural immigration since the

has led to the growth of non-Christian religions, the largest of which are Islam (3.2%), Hinduism (2.7%), Buddhism (2.4%), Sikhism (0.8%), and Judaism (0.4%). In 2021, just under 8,000 people declared an affiliation with traditional Aboriginal religions. In Australian Aboriginal mythology and the animist framework developed in Aboriginal Australia, the Dreaming (spirituality), Dreaming is a sacred era in which ancestral totemic spirit beings formed Creation myth, The Creation. The Dreaming established the laws and structures of society and the ceremonies performed to ensure continuity of life and land.

Health

Australia's life expectancy of 83 years (81 years for males and 85 years for females), is the List of countries by life expectancy, fifth-highest in the world. It has the highest rates of skin cancer in the world, while Tobacco smoking, cigarette smoking is the largest preventable cause of death and disease, responsible for 7.8% of the total mortality and disease. Ranked second in preventable causes is hypertension at 7.6%, with obesity third at 7.5%. Australia ranked 35th in the world in 2012 for its proportion of obese women and near the top of Developed country, developed nations for its proportion of Obesity in Australia, obese adults; 63% of its adult population is either overweight or obese. Australia spent around 9.91% of its total GDP to healthcare in 2021. It introduced universal health care in 1975. Known as Medicare (Australia), Medicare, it is now nominally funded by an income tax surcharge known as the Medicare levy, currently at 2%. The states manage hospitals and attached outpatient services, while the Commonwealth funds the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (subsidising the costs of medicines) and general practice. During the COVID-19 pandemic Australia had one of the most restrictive quarantine policies, resulting in one of the lowest death rates worldwide.

Education

School attendance, or registration for Homeschooling in Australia, home schooling, is compulsory throughout Australia. Education is the responsibility of the individual states and territories so the rules vary between states, but in general children are required to attend school from the age of about 5 until about 16. In some states (Western Australia, Northern Territory and New South Wales), children aged 16–17 are required to either attend school or participate in vocational training, such as an apprenticeship. Australia has an adult literacy rate that was estimated to be 99% in 2003. However, a 2011–2012 report for the Australian Bureau of Statistics reported that Tasmania has a literacy and numeracy rate of only 50%. Australia has 37 government-funded universities and three private universities, as well as a number of other specialist institutions that provide approved courses at the higher education level. The OECD places Australia among the most expensive nations to attend university. There is a state-based system of vocational training, known as Technical and further education, TAFE, and many trades conduct apprenticeships for training new tradespeople. About 58% of Australians aged from 25 to 64 have vocational or tertiary qualifications and the tertiary graduation rate of 49% is the highest among OECD countries. 30.9% of Australia's population has attained a higher education qualification, which is among the highest percentages in the world. Australia has the highest ratio of International students in Australia, international students per head of population in the world by a large margin, with 812,000 international students enrolled in the nation's universities and vocational institutions in 2019. Accordingly, in 2019, international students represented on average 26.7% of the student bodies of Australian universities. International education therefore represents one of the country's largest exports and has a pronounced influence on the country's demographics, with a significant proportion of international students remaining in Australia after graduation on various skill and employment visas. Education is Australia's third-largest export, after iron ore and coal, and contributed over $28 billion to the economy in 2016–17.

Culture

Royal exhibition building tulips straight

Australia is home to multiculturalism in Australia, a diversity of cultures, a result of its Immigration history of Australia, history of immigration. Since 1788, Australian culture has primarily been a Western culture strongly influenced by early Anglo-Celtic Australians, Anglo-Celtic settlers. Other influences include Australian Aboriginal culture, the traditions brought to the country by waves of immigration from around the world, and the culture of the United States. The cultural divergence and evolution that has occurred over the centuries since European settlement has resulted in a distinctive Australian culture.

Arts

Australia has over 100,000 Indigenous Australian art#Rock painting, Aboriginal rock art sites, and traditional designs, patterns and stories infuse contemporary Indigenous Australian art, "the last great art movement of the 20th century" according to critic Robert Hughes (critic), Robert Hughes; its exponents include Emily Kame Kngwarreye. Early colonial artists showed a fascination with the unfamiliar land. The impressionism, impressionistic works of Arthur Streeton, Tom Roberts and other members of the 19th-century Heidelberg School—the first "distinctively Australian" movement in Western art—gave expression to nationalist sentiments in the lead-up to Federation. While the school remained influential into the 1900s, modern art, modernists such as Margaret Preston, and, later, Sidney Nolan, explored new artistic trends. The landscape remained central to the work of Aboriginal watercolourist Albert Namatjira, as well as Fred Williams (artist), Fred Williams, Brett Whiteley and other post-war artists whose works, eclectic in style yet uniquely Australian, moved between the figurative art, figurative and the abstract art, abstract. Australian literature grew slowly in the decades following European settlement though Indigenous oral traditions, many of which have since been recorded in writing, are much older. In the 19th-century, Henry Lawson and Banjo Paterson captured the experience of Australian bush, the bush using a distinctive Australian vocabulary. Their works are still popular; Paterson's bush poetry, bush poem "Waltzing Matilda" (1895) is regarded as Australia's unofficial national anthem. Miles Franklin is the namesake of Australia's Miles Franklin Award, most prestigious literary prize, awarded annually to the best novel about Australian life. Its first recipient, Patrick White, went on to win the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1973. Australian Booker Prize winners include Peter Carey (novelist), Peter Carey, Thomas Keneally and Richard Flanagan. Australian public intellectuals have also written seminal works in their respective fields, including feminist Germaine Greer and philosopher Peter Singer. Many of Australia's performing arts companies receive funding through the federal government's Australia Council for the Arts, Australia Council. There is a symphony orchestra in each state, and a national opera company, Opera Australia, well known for its famous soprano Joan Sutherland. At the beginning of the 20th century, Nellie Melba was one of the world's leading opera singers. Ballet and dance are represented by The Australian Ballet and various state companies. Each state has a publicly funded theatre company.

Media

''The Story of the Kelly Gang'' (1906), the world's first feature film, feature-length narrative film, spurred a boom in cinema of Australia, Australian cinema during the silent film era. After World War I, Hollywood (film industry), Hollywood monopolised the industry, and by the 1960s Australian film production had effectively ceased. With the benefit of government support, the Australian New Wave of the 1970s brought provocative and successful films, many exploring themes of national identity, such as ''Wake in Fright'' and ''Gallipoli (1981 film), Gallipoli'', while ''Crocodile Dundee'' and the Ozploitation movement's ''Mad Max (franchise), Mad Max'' series became international blockbusters. In a film market flooded with foreign content, Australian films delivered a 7.7% share of the local box office in 2015. The AACTA Awards, AACTAs are Australia's premier film and television awards, and notable List of Australian Academy Award winners and nominees, Academy Award winners from Australia include Geoffrey Rush, Nicole Kidman, Cate Blanchett and Heath Ledger. Australia has two public broadcasters (the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and the multicultural Special Broadcasting Service), three commercial television networks, several pay-TV services, and numerous public, non-profit television and radio stations. Each major city has at least one daily newspaper, and there are two national daily newspapers, ''The Australian'' and ''The Australian Financial Review''. In 2020, Reporters Without Borders placed Australia 25th on a list of 180 countries ranked by freedom of the press, press freedom, behind New Zealand (8th) but ahead of the United Kingdom (33rd) and United States (44th). This relatively low ranking is primarily because of the limited diversity of commercial media ownership in Australia; most print media are under the control of News Corporation and Nine Entertainment Co.

Cuisine

Pavlova garnished with cream and strawberries

Most Indigenous Australian groups subsisted on a simple

hunter-gatherer A traditional hunter-gatherer or forager is a human living an ancestrally derived lifestyle in which most or all food is obtained by foraging, that is, by gathering food from local sources, especially edible wild plants but also insects, fung ...

diet of native fauna and flora, otherwise called bush tucker. The first settlers introduced British cuisine, British and Irish cuisine to the continent. This influence is seen in the enduring popularity of several British dishes such as fish and chips, and in quintessential Australian dishes such as the Meat pie (Australia and New Zealand), Australian meat pie, which is related to the British steak pie. Post-war immigration transformed Australian cuisine. For instance, Southern European migrants helped to build a thriving Australian coffee culture which gave rise to Australian coffee drinks such as the flat white, while East Asian migration led to dishes such as the Cantonese cuisine, Cantonese-influenced dim sim and Chiko Roll, as well as a distinct Australian Chinese cuisine. Sausage sizzles, pavlova (food), pavlovas, lamingtons, meat pie (Australia and New Zealand), meat pies, Vegemite and Anzac biscuits are regarded as iconic Australian foods. Australia is a leading exporter and consumer of wine. Australian wine is produced mainly in the southern, cooler parts of the country. The nation also ranks highly in List of countries by beer consumption per capita, beer consumption,Per Capita Beer Consumption by Country (2004)
, Table 3, Kirin Research Institute of Drinking and Lifestyle – Report Vol. 29–15 December 2005, Kirin Holdings Company. with each state and territory hosting numerous breweries. Australia is also known for its Coffeehouse, cafe and coffee culture in Urban area, urban centres.

Sport and recreation

2017 AFL Grand Final panorama during national anthem

Cricket and football are the predominant sports in Australia during the summer and winter months, respectively. Australia is unique in that it has professional leagues for football in Australia, four football codes. Originating in Melbourne in the 1850s, Australian rules football is the most popular code in all states except New South Wales and Queensland, where rugby league holds sway, followed by rugby union. Association football, Soccer, while ranked fourth in popularity and resources, has the highest overall participation rates. Cricket is popular across all borders and has been regarded by many Australians as the national sport. The Australia national cricket team, Australian national cricket team competed against England cricket team, England in the first Test cricket, Test match (1877) and the first One Day International (1971), and against New Zealand cricket team, New Zealand in the first Twenty20 International (2004), winning all three games. It has also participated in every edition of the Cricket World Cup, winning the tournament a record five times. Australia is one of five nations to have participated in every Summer Olympics of the modern era, and has hosted the Games twice: 1956 Summer Olympics, 1956 in Melbourne and 2000 Summer Olympics, 2000 in Sydney. It is also set to host the 2032 Summer Olympics, 2032 Games in Brisbane. Australia has also participated in every Commonwealth Games, hosting the event in 1938 British Empire Games, 1938, 1962 British Empire and Commonwealth Games, 1962, 1982 Commonwealth Games, 1982, 2006 Commonwealth Games, 2006 and 2018 Commonwealth Games, 2018. As well as being a regular FIFA World Cup participant, Australia men's national soccer team, Australia has won the OFC Nations Cup four times and the AFC Asian Cup once—the only country to have won championships in two different FIFA confederations. Other major international events held in Australia include the Australian Open tennis Grand Slam (tennis), grand slam tournament and the Australian Grand Prix, Australian Formula One Grand Prix. The annual Melbourne Cup horse race and the Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race, Sydney to Hobart yacht race also attract intense interest. Australia is also notable for water-based sports, such as swimming and surfing in Australia, surfing. The surf lifesaving movement originated in Australia, and the volunteer lifesaver is one of the country's icons. Winter sport in Australia#Snow sport, Snow sports take place primarily in the Australian Alps and Tasmania.

Notes

References

Bibliography

* * * * *

External links

* *
About Australia
from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (Australia), Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade website
Governments of Australia website
(federal, states and territories)
Australian Government website

Australian Bureau of Statistics

Tourism Australia
* {{Coord, 25, S, 133, E, type:country_region:AU_scale:20000000, display=title Australia, English-speaking countries and territories States and territories established in 1901 G20 nations Member states of the United Nations Member states of the Commonwealth of Nations Countries in Oceania Countries in Australasia Geographical articles missing image alternative text Transcontinental countries OECD members

Etymology

History

Indigenous peoples

European exploration and colonisation

Colonial expansion

Federation to the World Wars

Post-war and contemporary eras

Geography and environment

General characteristics

Geology

Climate

Biodiversity

Government and politics

States and territories

Foreign relations

Military

Economy