Australia Travel Information

Travel Alert Status

Level 1: Exercise Normal Precautions

Time Difference

UTC+10 (14 hours ahead of Washington, DC, during Standard Time)

time zone note: Australia has four time zones, including Lord Howe Island (UTC+10:30)

Travel Climate

Australia is a large, comparatively dry, and sparsely inhabited continent, almost as large as the 48 contiguous U.S. states. Australia, the only continent that consists of a single nation, is also the only inhabited continent that is isolated from all others (total coastline exceeds 22,000 miles). The average elevation is about 985 feet, which makes it the flattest continent on earth. This is among the prime reasons for sparse annual rainfall--16.5 inches, which is less than two-thirds of the world average (26 inches). Further, the rain falls mainly on coastal regions: forty percent of the surface gets less than 10 inches per year, and annual evaporation exceeds annual rainfall on about three-quarters of the land. Overall runoff is less than half that of the Mississippi basin; Australia has no navigable rivers of any commercial significance.

In general, the country is warmer than the U.S. (the northern one-third is in the Tropics, the rest in the Temperate Zone). Temperature extremes are much less pronounced. Sydney's average daytime temperature in the coldest month (July) is 59°F; in the warmest month (January), 81°F.

Travel Currency

1.352

Language Spoken

English 72%, Mandarin 2.7%, Arabic 1.4%, Vietnamese 1.3%, Cantonese 1.2%, other 15.7%, unspecified 5.7%

Languages

English, native languages

Ethnic Groups

English 33%, Australian 29.9%, Irish 9.5%, Scottish 8.6%, Chinese 5.5%, Italian 4.4%, German 4%, Indian 3.1%, Australian Aboriginal 2.9%, Greek 1.7%, unspecified 4.7%

National Holiday

Australia Day (commemorates the arrival of the First Fleet of Australian settlers), 26 January (1788); ANZAC Day (commemorates the anniversary of the landing of troops of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps during World War I at Gallipoli, Turkey), 25 April (1915)

Geographic Coordinates

27 00 S, 133 00 E

Location

Oceania, the continent between the Indian Ocean and the South Pacific Ocean

Airports

349

Australia Weather

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Australia - Land Down Under

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