And the answer: Australia.
The capital of Australia is Canberra, with the Commonwealth Government being the single largest employer in the city. Designed with the “garden city movement” in mind, Canberra features significant areas of vegetation to contrast the city’s metropolitan feel. Australia’s capital is also home to the annual Floriade Festival, the largest flower festival in the Southern Hemisphere.
Although Australia is the world’s largest island, it has one of the lowest population densities in the world—in fact, kangaroos outnumber humans almost 2 to 1. The country is home to intense and diverse landscapes that comprise the majority of the available land, making it so a whopping 90% of all Australians live along the coast. Outside of the major cities such as Perth, Sydney, and Melbourne, there are a plethora of smaller cities and beach towns that attract considerable interest from tourists and citizens alike. Plus, even the least-accessible regions of the nation have garnered attention for the incredibly unique ecosystems that exist and thrive only on the remote continent. In fact, 80% of Australian animals can only be found in Australia. Crikey indeed!
Australia is also home to another ecological wonder of the world: the Great Barrier Reef. The world’s largest coral reef system is made up of almost 3,000 individual reefs, stretches over 1,400 miles, and is the largest structure on Earth created by living organisms. The Reef is so massive that it can even be seen from space! Even more fascinating: the living corals which form the reef grow atop old, dead coral structures. It’s estimated that these original corals could be up to 20 million years old!
Did you know?
Yesterday was Australia Day! Observed annually on January 26, the holiday commemorates the landing of the First Fleet at Sydney Cove in 1788. Serving as a day of national unity and the largest annual civic event in the country, Australia Day is filled with a variety of community and family traditions, presentation of national awards, and the welcoming of new Australian citizens. Learn more about Australia’s history and culture here.
