10 Facts About Australia

Today we’re visiting a diverse country with a rich and deep culture with a bunch of facts about Australia.

What springs to mind when we think of Australia are; deadly snakes, man-eating crocodiles, poisonous spiders, beautiful beaches and the hot baking sun.

Anyway, there is much more to Australia than just that!

Contents

Here are the ten interesting facts about Australia.

1. Australian coat of arms

Kangaroos and Emus were selected to be featured on the country coat of arms for the reason that they rarely walk backwards.

Supposedly this was done to be symbolizing the country as a forward moving nation. But perhaps it was just because these animals are so cute?

2. There are more sheep than people

The sheep-to-person ratio is greater in Australia than in surrounding areas like Brazil or France.

In Australia there are 74 million sheep to 24 million people. That is a ratio of 3 to one.

3. Sydney is not the capital

Due to people not being able to decide on whether Sydney and Melbourne should be the Australian capital alternative measure were taken.

It was planned that neither of them should be the capital, and instead a fresh capital known as Canberra was built. Decided over a beer, probably.

4. Swimming in the ocean used to be illegal

It can be weird to imagine visiting an Australian beach and not be allowed to swim, but until 1902 it was illegal to swim along the entirety of Australia’s coast line during the day.

While we might imagine this being due to sharks or other wildlife and safety reasons, in fact it was considered sinful, or immoral.

This all stopped when one man defied the law and went for a swim at broad daylight, although he was arrested, no charges were laid, and other people began to follow suit.

5. Only 3 out of 4 Australians were born there.

Australia have had a long history of human habitation, but there’s also been a long standing immigration to the continent.

Today, almost a quarter of Australian residents were born abroad. We have to wonder if all those immigrating there know about the spiders?

6. Saudi Arabia import camels from Australia

When Australians first started building their railroads they brought over wild camels. This proved a clever move since the animals fared well in the Australian climate.

Today, around one million wild camels travel in the Australia desserts. Even Saudi Arabia imports camels from Australia. Talk about funny facts about Australia, eh?

7. Australians are not particularly fond of Starbucks

While there is a big coffee and café culture in Australia, locals are not big fans of North America brand Starbucks.

In 2000, Starbucks opened the doors of its primary place in Sydney. They’ve had a hard time entering the market compared to other countries and today there are only twenty five Starbucks coffee shops in the country.

8. Australia has lots of spiders

If you suffer from arachnophobia and you are going to Australia, be careful where you step. There are 1,500 species of Australian spiders.

In 2012 an episode of Peppa Pig (famous cartoon in UK) was banned from Australia.

This was due to the main message that spiders were not to be feared was deemed “unsuitable for an Australian audience”.

9. Horse racing stops the nation

A horse race stops the country once a year for a few minutes. People listen in on radio, or watch the race on television during the Melbourne Cup.

And in Melbourne everyone gets a public holiday to enjoy.

10. They eat Kangaroo

That is correct. Australia makes use of their large population of this native macro-pod.

Not every person in the country enjoys the meat, but kangaroo meat is largely accessible in supermarkets, domestic butchers and even available on restaurants menus.

It is a low fat red meat considered to be a healthier substitute to lamb and beef.

That’s it for this time, we hope you enjoyed the facts about Australia, and we think you should take a look at some of our other posts!