Australia Prepare Semenuyk Masha, Kiseleva Angelina, Anisimova Sveta.

Contents Geographical location Australian nature History Inhabitants Government Customs and traditions Some famous places

Geographical location Australia is a large country which is located between the Indian and Pacific Oceans. Australia is the largest island in the world and the smallest continent. It consists of the continent of Australia and a great number of islands of which Tasmania is the most important.

Geographical location The country includes six states: new south Wales, Victoria, Queens land, south Australia, western Australia and two internal territories. Its area is about 7,700,000 square km.

Australian nature The Great Barrier Reef on the coast of Queensland is a garden under the sea. There are 1,400 different kinds of fish, and more than 300 kinds of coral. Also tropical fruit and flowers grow on the beautiful islands. Tasmania, the island in south of Australia, is small. It's the same size as England. There are no deserts in Tasmania. It often rains, both in winter and summer. Only a half of million people live in Tasmania, and a large part of the island is still covered with wild forests. These forests are full of wonderful flowers and interesting animals.

Australian nature In the Northern Territory you will find the red heart of Australia. And it really is red, with red rocks, red sand, and red skies in the evening. Every year, thousands of tourists visit Ayers Rock and a strange group of huge red stones called "the Olgas". Sydney is the best known place in New South Wales. In fact, it's the best known place in Australia. But New South Wales has more than cities. There are, for example, the Blue Mountains. They are covered with forests of blue eucalyptus trees. The air above the forest contains millions of microscopic drops of eucalyptus oil. When the sun shines, the air of the Blue Mountains is a real, beautiful blue.

History Australia is located 3 million miles away from other countries that's why it wasn't discovered for a long time. And only in 1606 Dutch sailors reached the shores of the unknown continent, but it was not settled till the English Captain Cook discovered the East Coast in When settlement began in 1788 the continent was inhabited by about people, who are now called aborigines. Diseases which were brought by settlers caused many deaths among the aborigines and now there are only about of them. At the beginning of the 19-th century the English colonists gave the fifth continent the name Australia or "the unknown southern land ". Nobody wanted to live there because it was used as a prison where the British government would send British prisoners.

Government The Commonwealth of Australia is a capitalist self- governing federal state. There are some political parties in Australia: the liberal party, the labor party and two socialist parties of Australia.

Inhabitants 80% people live in big and small cities along coast. The biggest city is Sydney. Sydney is the oldest and largest city in Australia and a big industrial centre. About 3 million people now live there. Inhabitants consists of different kinds of European people and Aborigines. The aboriginal population is only 1%.

Customs and traditions The national holiday, Australia Day, is now celebrated on January 26th in memory of landing of the British in There are more traditions, but all of them like British traditions. For example, giving presents to each other. It does not do only children and members of family. It's a tradition to give Christmas presents to the people you work with.

Some famous places Less than a hundred years ago, there was nothing except sheep in Canberra. But then Australians decided to build a capital city. The work began in Now, Canberra is an international city, full of diplomats and government offices. It's beautiful place, with parks, lakes, big open streets and fine buildings. What is more, in Australia there is famous Sydney. This city is well known for its opera-house. It was build since1959 till 1973, and was opened on 20 October, Building costs102 million american dollars.

The end