Some people understand that Canada's population is only 40 million (2023), and although Canada covers an area of 9.98 million square kilometers, the northern region is within the Arctic Circle, and the climate is harsh, making it unsuitable for large-scale human habitation.
Australia, which is similar to Canada, is also a member of the Five Eyes Alliance, a member of the Commonwealth of Nations, with the King of the United Kingdom as its head of state, and its residents are mainly of white European descent, with a vast and sparsely populated area of 7.69 million square kilometers, and the climate is not as extreme as northern Canada, why is the population only 26.39 million (2023)?
Australia covers an area of about 7.692 million square kilometers, ranking sixth in the world and about 80% the size of China. Surrounded by the sea, Australia is the only country in the world whose territory covers the entire continent, and the part of the Australian continent is also called Australia.
Australia has a population of about 26.39 million (2023), of which 51.1% are of British and Irish descent, 5.5% are of Chinese descent, and about 3.2% are Indigenous. The official language is English, and Chinese is the second most spoken language after English.
Before European colonists came to Australia, Aboriginal people lived here for more than 40,000 years.
Zheng He went to the West and reached the Indonesian island of Java many times, but he never came to Australia. The main reason is that wherever Zheng He went, he was either inhabited by Chinese, such as Luzon in the Philippines and Java in Indonesia, or in Arab spheres of influence, such as the Red Sea coast and the East African coast. These places have a common characteristic, the development of civilization is relatively ahead. At that time, Australia was still the world of the aborigines, in a primitive social state, and Zheng He's fleet would certainly not go.
Australia is not too far from present-day Indonesia, why did other civilizations not influence or even control it at that time? This is related to Australia's climate and geography, the weather is hot, the land is barren, and there are deserts everywhere, and with the productivity of other civilizations at that time, it was unable to develop.
Australia has a lot of deserts, and the main reason is that the terrain is flat and lacks mountains.
Mountains and hills can block the scorching sun and effectively reduce water evaporation. We walk on the road in the summer, either with umbrellas or in the shadows of buildings, and few of us are directly exposed to the sun. A person cannot be exposed to the scorching sun for a long time, and the same is true for the land, which is exposed to the sun for a long time, and all the water evaporates and gradually forms a desert.
Unlike the high mountains and the lowlands, snow can be formed, which melts and collects into ditches and streams to form rivers. The Yangtze River, the Yellow River, the Mekong River, the Brahmaputra River, the Indus River and other rivers that originate in the mainland are largely due to the melting of ice and snow.
There are many peaks in Asia that exceed 6,000 meters, many peaks in Africa and the Americas exceed 5,000 meters, the highest peak in the European Alps is Mont Blanc with an altitude of 4,810 meters, and the Danube, Rhine, Po, and Rhône rivers all originate in the Alps.
The average altitude in Australia is more than 300 meters, and only 13% of the land is more than 500 meters above sea level, and only 1% of the land is more than 1,000 meters above sea level. The Australian Desert is located in the central and western part of Australia, including the Great Sandy Desert, the Victoria Desert, the Gibson Desert, the Tanami Desert, the Simpson Desert, etc., with a MacDonald Range in the middle. Speaking of mountains, the MacDonald Mountains are just slightly higher above the surrounding deserts, more like the desert next door to the northern part of the continent, and are terraces with little sand.
The Great Dividing Range in the eastern part of Australia, from the Cape York Peninsula in the north to the southeast coast in the south, is more than 3,000 kilometers long, 160-320 kilometers wide, and about 800-1,000 meters above sea level, which is the highest place in Australia. The Great Dividing Range, which blocks the water vapor of the Pacific Ocean tightly, hence the name Watershed, gradually desertified to the west.
Australia's highest peak, Mount Kosciuszko, is only 2,228 meters, not in the central part of Australia, but in the southeast corner of Australia. The Great Dividing Range is indeed misplaced when Pangu opened the world, and if the Great Dividing Range is placed in the middle of Australia, and Mount Theusco is also in the middle, the topography of Australia is much better.
The central part of Australia is roughly a flat land of about six or seven million square kilometers. This terrain would quickly dry up if all the water from the Great Lakes of North America were to be filled in, because there would be no water storage here.
According to the principle of the largest amount of water, the longest river in Australia is the Murray River, with a length of about 2,589 kilometers. If we follow the principle of the source of the river, the Darling River is the source of the river, which is about 3,719 kilometers long. Due to the small flow of the Darling River, some sections of the river are still cut off during the dry season, and it is customary to use the longer Darling River as a tributary of the Murray River.
The Murray River originates from Mount Corciasco, Australia's highest peak, and runs from east to west, with the upper and middle reaches of the boundary river between New South Wales and Victoria, and turns southwest in South Australia to empties into the Inconte Bay.
Due to the lack of snow, many of the tributaries of the Murray River dry up as soon as the dry season arrives. As Australia's largest river, the Murray River has an average flow of 767 cubic metres per second. The average flow of provincial-level rivers such as the Minjiang, Xiangjiang and Ganjiang rivers in the mainland is more than 2,000 cubic meters per second.
Deserts and deserts account for 70% of Australia, and less than 4% of the land is suitable for livestock and farming. Rivers are few and flowing, and many rivers break off during the dry season. There are not many lakes, and most of them are saltwater lakes, and most of the rivers and lakes are drawn with dotted lines.
On the whole, the total amount of river water in Australia is an order of magnitude smaller than that of any province in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, which shows the extent of water shortage in Australia.
Figure - Uluru Boulder
If you only look at latitude, the Tropic of Cancer crosses central Australia, where the average temperature in winter is between 10 °C and 20 °C, and the average temperature in summer is between 20 °C and 30 °C. However, Australia's temperature is so suitable for human beings, and the area is so large, but the population is only 26.39 million (2023), and the vast majority of it is concentrated in a few cities on the southeast coast. For example, Sydney, the capital of New South Wales, Brisbane, the capital of Queensland, Melbourne, the capital of Victoria, Adelaide, the capital of South Australia, and Canberra, the capital of South Australia. Sydney and Melbourne are Australia's two megacities, with populations of more than 5 million, and together they are more than 10 million, accounting for about 40% of Australia's total population.
Figure - Sydney
Among the top 10 countries in the world, Australia has the smallest population density, and we have the impression that Russia, which is vast and sparsely populated, is more than twice the area of Australia, and the population is more than five times that of Australia.
Figure - Dampier Creek
Australia is a country of immigrants, and its population has been growing steadily, with a population of 10.28 million (1960), 12.51 million (1970), 14.69 million (1980), 17.07 million (1990), 19.03 million (2000), 22.03 million (2010), and 25.66 million (2020).
Australia has a lot of deserts, but also a lot of mineral resources. Australia ranks first in the world in proven economic reserves of lead, nickel, silver, uranium, zinc and tantalum, and is the world's largest producer of lithium and zirconium, the world's largest exporter of bituminous coal, bauxite, diamonds and zinc concentrates, the second largest exporter of alumina, iron ore and uranium, and the third largest exporter of aluminum and gold.