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Australia is the smallest continent, but combines a wide variety of landscapes. These include deserts in its interior, hills and mountains, tropical rain forests, and heavily-populated coastal strips with long beaches and coral reefs off the shoreline. When the British founded the first settlement and named it Sydney in 1788, there were a few hundred thousand Aborigines living in the country. Two centuries of discrimination and expropriation were to follow, during which, at one point, the number of Aborigines fell as low as 60,000.
- Capital City: Canberra
- Population: 19.8 million (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2003)
- Major language: English
- Major religion: Christianity
- Life expectancy: 76 years (men), 82 years (women) (UN)
- Monetary unit: 1 Australian dollar = 100 cents
- Main exports: Ores and metals; wool, food and live animals; fuels, transport machinery and equipment
- Average annual income: US $19,900 (World Bank, 2001)
- Internet domain: .au
- International dialling code: +61
THE MEDIA
- The press
- The Sydney Morning Herald - daily
- Herald Sun - Melbourne-based daily
- The Australian - national daily
- The Daily Telegraph - Sydney-based daily
- The Courier-Mail - Brisbane-based daily
- The West Australian - Perth-based daily
- The Age - Melbourne-based daily
- The Advertiser - Adelaide-based daily
- Australian Financial Review - business daily
- Television
- ABC - national public network
- SBS TV - national multicultural public broadcaster, programs in English and 60 other languages.
- Seven Network - national commercial.
- Nine Network - national commercial.
- Ten Network - national commercial.
- Australian Broadcasting Authority (ABA) - licenses and regulates TV stations; station lists available.
- Foxtel - pay-TV operator, owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, the Packer group and telecommunications giant Telstra.
- Optus - pay TV operator.
RADIO
- ABC - public radio, operates speech-cultural network Radio National, rolling news station ABC News Radio, youth-oriented Triple J, classical and contemporary music network ABC Classic FM and local-regional services.
- Radio Australia - ABC's external service, targeted at Asia-Pacific region via shortwave and internet.
- SBS Radio - national multicultural, multilingual public network, broadcasts in 68 languages.
- Australian Broadcasting Authority (ABA) - licenses and regulates radio stations; station lists available.
- News agency/internet
- AAP - Australian Associated Press
- ABC Newsonline - public broadcaster ABC's news site
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