"Australia is the smallest and the youngest discovered continent in the world. It´s the sixth largest country after Russia, Canada, China, The USA and Brazil. It´s sometimes called Ozzies or Down under. The name of Australia comes from Latin Terra Australis which mean southern land.

Australia is situated in the southern hemisphere. It´s washed by the Indian Ocean in west and the South Pacific Ocean in the east. Australia is extremely arid area so there aren´t any big rivers or lakes. The biggest lakes are: Eyre Lake, Torrens Lake and Gairdner Lake. The longest rivers are the Murey and the Darling River.
On the eastern coast there are the Australian Alps with the highest peak Mt. Kosciusko which was discovered by Polish scientist. In the east there is the Great Dividing Range as well. Close to Sydney there are the Blue Mountains. Extremely famous is Uluru. It´s the largest piece of rock in the world and it has a special meaning for the Aborigines who worship it.
Australia is extremely arid area and due to this there are many deserts as the Great Sandy Desert and the Great Victoria Desert.
In Australia there are many lowlands. These are for example: the Western Plateau in the West and the Central-Eastern Lowlands in the central Australia.
Close to Australia there is Tasmania which was discovered by Abel Tasman. It´s part of the Commonwealth of Australia.

Australian climate is strange for us. Summer starts in December, autumn in March, winter in June and spring in September.
The northern part of continent lies in the tropical climate zone so you can find there rainforests. The rest of Australia lies in subtropical and sometimes temperate climate zone. In these areas deserts are usual. It´s very hard to live there so people normally live on coasts.

The Aboriginals, who are original inhabitant, arrived from Asia 40 000 years ago when Australia wasn’t spate island.
Australia became an island 20 000 years ago
In the 17th century Abel Tasman discovered an island which was named Tasmania.
It was discovered by James Cook in 1770. He landed close to Sydney and explored the eastern coast.
In the 18th century came mostly convicts and Australia was something like huge prison.
In 19th century gold was founded there. Due to this gold fever started.
In 1901 Australia gained formal independence.

In Australia there live 22 million people. The original inhabitants are Aboriginals. They are black people who came from Asia 40 000 years ago. The rest of Australia’s people are migrants or descendants of migrants who arrived to Australia from about 200 countries. Most of them have British. The density is the highest on the eastern coast. On the other hand, the rest of Australia is almost uninhabited so Australia has the lowest density in the world - only 2 people to a square kilometer. The Australians people like playing rugby and Australian football. Cricket is another popular game.
Australia is separate from the rest of the world so there live much endemism. You can found there for example koala bear. It´s a small grey bear which eats eucalyptus. Kangaroo is symbol of Australia. They have big problems with them there, because they were overpopulated. Platypus is a very strange animal - it's a mammal, but it has a beak and webbed feet and lays eggs. There live kiwis, dingo the dog, wombat, Tasman devil, emu or white shark.
Australia is a member of the British Commonwealth of Nations and it´s dominion with the Queen as the head of country. Its official name is the Commonwealth of Australia. The capital of Australia is Canberra."