Canberra
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the continental mainland (the world's smallest),[1][2] the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans.N1 Neighbouring countries include Indonesia, East Timor, and Papua New Guinea to the north, the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, and New Caledonia to the north-east, and New Zealand to the southeast.
Australia is a developed country, with a prosperous multicultural society and has excellent results in many international comparisons of national performance such as health care, life expectancy, quality of life, human development, public education, economic freedom, and the protection of civil liberties and political rights.[3] Australian cities routinely rank among the world's highest in terms of cultural offerings and quality of life. It is a member of the United Nations, G-20 major economies, Commonwealth of Nations, ANZUS, OECD, and the WTO.
Economy
The Australian dollar is the currency of the Commonwealth of Australia, including Christmas Island, Cocos (Keeling) Islands, and Norfolk Island, as well as the independent Pacific Island states of Kiribati, Nauru, and Tuvalu. After the 2006 merger of the Australian Stock Exchange and the Sydney Futures Exchange, the Australian Securities Exchange is now the 9th largest in the World.[4]
Australia is one of the most laissez-faire free market economies, according to indices of economic freedom. Australia's per capita GDP is slightly higher than that of the United States, UK, Germany, and France. The country was ranked second in the United Nations 2009 Human Development Index, first in Legatum's 2008 Prosperity Index, and sixth in The Economist worldwide Quality-of-Life Index for 2005. All of Australia's major cities fare well in global comparative liveability surveys;[5] Melbourne reached 2nd place on The Economist's 2008 World's Most Livable Cities list, followed by Perth at 4th, Adelaide at 7th, and Sydney at 9th.[6]
Notes
- ^ Australia describes the body of water south of its mainland as the Southern Ocean, rather than the Indian Ocean as defined by the International Hydrographic Organization (IHO). In 2000, a vote of IHO member nations defined the term "Southern Ocean" as applying only to the waters between Antarctica and 60 degrees south latitude.
References
- ^ a b "Australia". Encyclopædia Britannica. "Smallest continent and sixth largest country (in area) on Earth, lying between the Pacific and Indian oceans."
- ^ a b "Continents: What is a Continent?". National Geographic Society. "Most people recognize seven continents—Asia, Africa, North America, South America, Antarctica, Europe, and Australia, from largest to smallest—although sometimes Europe and Asia are considered a single continent, Eurasia."
- ^ "Australia: World Audit Democracy Profile". WorldAudit.org.
- ^ http://www.asx.com.au/about/pdf/asx_speech_eric_mayne_061106.pdf
- ^ Melbourne 'world's top city' (2004), The Age. Retrieved on 31 January 2009.
- ^ "Liveability ranking: Urban idylls.
This guide is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.
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