Australia

Australia is a very special country. It is the sixth largest country in the world. It is also the world’s smallest continent. The coastline of Australia is almost 50,000 kilometres long. There are over 10,000 beaches to choose from but many Australians travel overseas to visit nearby countries that are famous for their beaches. Most Australians live in cities. These cities are located along the coast. The middle part of Australia is called the Outback. It is a bare desert and there are no rivers. Temperatures in the Outback are always high and that is why many people don’t like to live there.
Australia is rich in its natural resources. It produces 95 per cent of the world's precious opals and 99 per cent of its black opals. Opal is found in South Australia. The world’s largest opal was found in 1990. It weighed 5.27 kilograms. Gold is also found in Australia. Kalgoorlie in Western Australia is Australia's largest producer of gold.
Australia produces most of the world’s wool. It has 85.7 million sheep. It is also the world’s largest exporter of beef. Japan and the Middle East are the biggest importers of Australian beef. The world's longest continuous fence – the dingo fence – was built to keep sheep safe from dingos. A dingo is Australia’s native dog. It is different from other animals because it kills for pleasure. One dingo can kill about 100 sheep overnight. The dingo fence runs for 5,531 kilometres through central Queensland and South Australia. Today Australia is home to a wealth of wildlife not found anywhere else in the world. The kangaroo is a famous animal and it is unique to Australia. There are an estimated 40 million kangaroos in Australia. There are around 800 species of birds in Australia, half of which are native to this country.
Since 1945 more than six million people from across the world have come to Australia to live. Today, more than 20 per cent of Australians were born in foreign countries. In our homes we speak 226 languages. After English, the most popular are Italian, Greek, Cantonese and Arabic. The aboriginal civilization is believed to be the world’s oldest civilization. Aboriginal people have lived and thrived on this continent for more than 50,000 years.
The aboriginals made many advances long before the Europeans arrived. They invented the boomerang. Now there are not many aboriginal people. They die at an early age because their bodies can’t resist certain diseases like the common cold. Some of them have drinking problems and they live in poor conditions.