1.This is Australia. The oldest, driest, most sparsely inhabited continent on Earth*.
2.Australia is almost as big as Antarctica!
3.Now, despite what you may have heard Tony Abbott say, Australia was very much inhabited when the British arrived in 1788. A true rainbow nation of 700+ languages.
4.Today, just two percent of Australia's population lives in the yellow area.
5.Despite Australia's romanticism for the bush, 90% of Australians live in cities.
6.There are twice as many camels as people in central Australia.
7.Put another way, only one million people live north of this line.
8.Which means that if you're out bush, you're a helluva long way from civilisation.
9.This random snapshot of Australia's daily temperature shows why. Temperatures above 48 degrees centigrade, 118 degrees Fahrenheit?
10.How hot?! To help U.S. readers get orientated, here's Australia superimposed over North America with the same latitudes.
11.What does that actually mean in weather terms? This might help.
12.Flip Australia upside down and there are quite a lot of similarities with the U.S.
13.So Australia is basically just one big desert right? Well, yep, desert, and 25 other climatic zones mate.
14.And despite all those deserts, Australia has a lot of running water. Here's all the streams, and nothing else.
15.(Some parts of ) Australia actually get a lot of rain.
16.So who actually lives in the middle? A SHIT LOAD OF RED KANGAROOS IS WHO.
17.Our sparse population explains Australia's not so mighty rail network...
18....and extensive system of national highways (some of these towns have hundreds rather than thousands of inhabitants).
19.Here's the evolution of Australia's colonies and territories from 1788 to today.
20.Here's the Australia we might have had.
21.And here's what Australia would look like as eight equally populated states.
22.Finally, here's what Australia thinks of itself according to Google.
23.Now, what would happen if the ice melted? Straya would survive!
