Destinations: Australia

Australia is a continent and a country. Until the early 19th century, Australia was best known as New Holland, a name first applied by the Dutch explorer Abel Tasman in 1644. The name Australia is derived from the Latin Terra Australis (“southern land”), a name used for a hypothetical continent in the Southern Hemisphere since ancient times.

It is the world’s sixth-largest country. Surrounded by the Indian and Pacific oceans, Australia is separated from Asia by the Arafura and Timor seas, with the Coral Sea lying off the Queensland coast, and the Tasman Sea lying between Australia and New Zealand. It is sometimes considered the world’s largest island. It is a mega diverse country, and its size gives it a wide variety of landscapes and climates, with deserts in the centre, tropical rainforests in the northeast, and mountain ranges in the southeast.

Australia is a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy, comprising six states and ten territories. Sydney is the most populous city and financial centre. Its economy depends on services, mining exports, banking, manufacturing, agriculture and international education.”