Australia

Australia stretches across several climate zones, from tropical rainforests in the north to vast drylands in the interior, snowy mountains in the southeast, and the cooler island of Tasmania. A trip across the country can pass through coral coasts, red desert, alpine highlands, and cool southern forests.

The Great Dividing Range is a long system of mountains and highlands along eastern Australia. Moist air from the Pacific rises over the highlands and drops more rain on the eastern side, while much of the land farther inland is drier. That wetter edge helped farms, towns, and many of Australia's largest cities grow along the east and southeast.

Much of Australia's dry interior sits above an enormous hidden supply of water. In the Great Artesian Basin, rainwater that seeped underground long ago is trapped in layers of porous rock beneath eastern and central Australia. Wells and natural springs tap this water, helping support communities and livestock far from regularly flowing rivers.

The Great Barrier Reef is the largest coral reef system in the world, stretching more than 2,300 kilometers (1,400 miles) along northeastern Australia—and parts of it can be seen from space! It contains thousands of reefs and islands filled with marine life. Worryingly, rising ocean temperatures are damaging coral and causing some parts of the reef to die, but scientists, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, and reef managers are working to protect and restore it.

Long before Australia was divided into modern states and territories, hundreds of Indigenous Nations had their own homelands across the continent. Aboriginal peoples are the First Peoples of mainland Australia and Tasmania, while Torres Strait Islander peoples come from the islands between northern Australia and Papua New Guinea. Within those broad groups are hundreds of communities with their own languages, laws, traditions, and ancestral homelands.

Many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples refer to their ancestral homeland as "Country." The idea includes not only the land and water, but people's relationships with ancestors, stories, laws, and responsibilities to care for that place. For the Wurundjeri people around Melbourne, for example, Birrarung—the river often called the Yarra in English—is connected with food, travel, gathering, story, and responsibility.

Britain began colonizing Australia in 1788 by sending the First Fleet to establish a penal colony at Sydney Cove. Many convicts were poor people sentenced for crimes such as stealing food or clothing, and transportation could mean years of forced labor on the other side of the world. Britain eventually sent more than 160,000 convicts to Australian colonies, where their labor helped build roads, farms, and settlements. As the colonies expanded, Aboriginal peoples were displaced from their lands and suffered violence and disease.

Australia's population hugs the coasts, while the vast dry interior is much more sparsely populated. Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, and Adelaide all grew into major coastal cities. After World War II, Australia actively encouraged large-scale immigration, first drawing many migrants from Europe and later increasingly from Asia and other parts of the world.

In Western Australia, trains carrying iron ore can stretch more than 2.5 kilometers (1.5 miles) long! Iron ore is rock containing enough iron to be mined and processed into the metal used to make steel. Huge mines in the remote Pilbara load the ore onto trains that carry it hundreds of kilometers across the dry landscape to coastal ports.

For thousands of years, Aboriginal peoples lived across Australia's dry interior by using detailed knowledge of water, seasons, plants, animals, and fire. As British colonies expanded, settlers took control of more Indigenous land and tried to use it for European-style farming. Much of the interior was too dry for crops, so settlers increasingly raised sheep and cattle instead; because pasture and water were spread so widely, some ranches—called stations—became enormous. Anna Creek Station in South Australia is larger than some countries.

Australia's hot, dry weather can turn bushfires into enormous, fast-moving fires that threaten forests, wildlife, homes, and towns. But fire has also been deliberately used to care for Australian landscapes for thousands of years. Aboriginal peoples in many regions developed cultural burning, using carefully controlled fires at particular times and places to encourage plants, manage habitats, care for Country, and in some landscapes reduce the buildup of material that can fuel larger fires.

When Australia's six British colonies joined together to form one country in 1901, the new nation needed a capital—but Sydney and Melbourne were rivals. Rather than choose either city, leaders agreed to build a new capital in New South Wales, away from Sydney. Canberra was eventually selected and deliberately planned for the job.