Australia: Location, Area, Political and Physical Features
ICSE Class 7 · Geography · Chapter 16
What this chapter covers
- Australia: an introduction
- Location of Australia
- Boundaries of Australia
- Area of Australia
- Political divisions: states, territories and capitals
- Physical divisions of Australia
- The Eastern Highlands and the Great Dividing Range
- The Central Lowlands
- The Western Plateau
- The Great Barrier Reef
- Locating Australia on the map
Key points
- Australia is the smallest continent, covering about 7.7 million km2, a little more than twice the area of India.
- Mainland Australia lies between about 10° S and 39° S, and between about 113° E and 153° E; it lies wholly in the Southern and Eastern Hemispheres.
- The Tropic of Capricorn passes almost through the middle of the continent.
- Australia is surrounded by the Indian Ocean on the west and south and the Pacific Ocean on the east, with the Timor and Arafura Seas on the north.
- The Torres Strait separates Australia from New Guinea, and the Bass Strait separates the mainland from Tasmania.
- The continent is occupied by one country, a federation of six states and two main territories; Canberra is the national capital.
- The states and capitals are Western Australia (Perth), South Australia (Adelaide), Queensland (Brisbane), New South Wales (Sydney), Victoria (Melbourne) and Tasmania (Hobart); the Northern Territory's capital is Darwin.
- Most people live along the eastern and south-eastern coasts; the dry interior, the outback, is very thinly peopled.
- The Great Dividing Range runs along the east; Mount Kosciuszko, about 2,228 m, is the highest point of the mainland.
- The Central Lowlands hold Lake Eyre, the lowest point, the Murray-Darling river system and the Great Artesian Basin.
- The Western Plateau covers about two-thirds of the continent and contains large deserts, the Nullarbor Plain and Uluru.
- The Great Barrier Reef, about 2,300 km long off the Queensland coast, is the largest coral reef system in the world.
Questions answered
Between which latitudes does mainland Australia lie?
From about 10° S to about 39° S.
Why is Australia called the island continent?
It is surrounded completely by water like an island, but it is large enough to be counted as a continent.
Which important line of latitude passes through Australia? Name the two states it crosses.
The Tropic of Capricorn. It crosses the states of Western Australia and Queensland (it also crosses the Northern Territory, which is a territory, not a state).
Name the straits that separate Australia from New Guinea and from Tasmania.
The Torres Strait separates it from New Guinea, and the Bass Strait separates the mainland from Tasmania.
What is a bight? Name the bight on the southern coast of Australia.
A bight is a long, gentle curve in a coastline that forms a wide, open bay. The Great Australian Bight lies on the southern coast.
Australia covers about 7.7 million km2 and Europe about 10.2 million km2. By how much is Europe larger?
10.2 - 7.7 = 2.5 million km2. Europe is about 2.5 million km2 larger.
Name the capitals of Queensland, Victoria, Western Australia and Tasmania.
Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth and Hobart.
Name the three main physical regions of Australia from east to west.
The Eastern Highlands (Great Dividing Range), the Central Lowlands and the Western Plateau.