The Commonwealth of Australia is located southeast of Asia; it is a self-governing member of the Commonwealth of Nations. The continent is surrounded by water with the Timor Sea, the Arafura Sea, and the Torres Strait to the north; the Coral Sea and the Tasman Sea to the east; the Bass Strait and the Indian Ocean in the south; and the Indian Ocean on the west;. The land area of the Australia is around 7,614,500 sq km (2,939,974 sq mi), this makes Australia the smallest continent in the world, but it is also the sixth largest country. The capital of Australia is Canberra, and the largest city is Sydney; both are located in the southeast part of the continent. (MSN Learning & Research, 1993).
Some 50,000 years ago the Aboriginal people were the first people to inhabit Australia when they migrated to the continent from Asia. The Aboriginal people were Australia's only culture for some 49,000 years until around the 1700's. When the first European settlement was established in 1788 at Port Jackson; this settlement was a British penal colony that later grew into the city of Sydney we know today. The new inhabitants of Australia's culture started to develop more of these British colonies in the late 1800's, and in 1901 the colonies came together to form a unified nation independent of Britain, the Commonwealth of Australia. (MSN Learning & Research, 1993).
POPULATION.
The estimated total population in 2002 was 19,546,792, giving the country an overall population density of 3 people per sq km (or 7 per sq mi). This makes Australia the least populated continent in the world. Australia's male (50.3%) to female (49.7%) ratio is almost even. The population has grown at a relatively slow rate, averaging about 1.25 % each year from 1996 to 2002. Most of the Australia is not even inhabited; about 85 % of the population lives in cities along the coasts. In fact, four out of every five Australians live on these coastal plains which make up only 3 % of the country's total land area.