Australia and New Zealand

Australia and New Zealand

Australia is the smallest continent and the biggest island in the world. It´s situated between the Pacific and the Indian Oceans.

There are two great deserts in Australia: the Great Sandy Desert and Victoria desert. There are red, orange and brown rocks. Ayers Rock the largest piece of rock in the world. It´s 335m high.

Australia has two big rivers: Murray and the Darling and 3 lakes. The highest mountain is Mount Kosciusku (2228m).

Australia has many different kinds of climate tropical in the north, continental in the interior, subtropical in the rest of the continet. The south – east coast has warm summers and mild winters; the Australian Alps have snow for almost half the year.

Australia is famous for its animals (the kangaroo, Koala, emu). And the platypus is probably the world´s strangest animal.

New Zealand

Is south – east of Asustralia. It consists of two lage islands the North Island and the South Island. New Zealand is mainly mountainous. Mount Cook in the Souther Alps in the South Island is 3. 764 m high. The North Island is famous for its volcanic area. It also has many small lakes.

Population

Australia and New Zealand were doscovered by the Dutch in the 17th century. James Cook explored the coast of island in 1770. The settlement of Australia began here in January 226th, 11788 with the arrival of about 1.000 colonist from Britain. The day is now a public holiday.

When the first white people from Eurpe came to Australia, there lived about 300.000 Australian Aborigines. Many of them died. Now there are about 200.000 Aborigines.

Area of Australia is about 7 692 000 square km and there live only 17 million inhabitants.

The first inhabitants of New Zealand where the Maoris of Polynesian origin. Today they represent about 9 percent of the population. Area of New Zealand is about 268.800 square km and the population is 3.389.000. More than 80 percent of the population live in towns.

Political system

Australia and New Zealand are independent states within the British Commonwealth of Nations. The head of both states is the British monarch represented by the Governor. Australia is a federal state conssting of six states and TCO territories: Western A., Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, South A., Tasmania, Northern Territory and Australian Capital Territory. Each state has its own government and its own capital city.

The capital of Australia is Canberra. Sydney is the oldest, largest and most beautifull city. It is the main part. A wonderful part of Sydney is the famoust Opera house designed by a Danish architect. It stands in the harbour and looks like sailing boats.

New Zealand is divided into counties. Its capital ic Wellington. Other large cities are Auckland and Hamilton.

Flags

The Australian flag is a blue field with the British Union Jack in the upper left corner, a white federal atar and five white stars of Southern Cross.

The falg of New Zealand consists of the Union Jack and four red stars in the constellation of the Southern Cross.