Can You Pass This Australian General Knowledge Quiz?

Australia had been inhabited by indigenous people for about 60,000 years before British settlement and colonization. The country's eastern half was claimed by Great Britain in 1770.

Australia is ranked 8th globally in terms of democracy. This means it is considered a full democracy. Canada ranks above it and Finland ranks below it.

Australia is largely overtaken by large arid deserts, known as the Outback. It extends from the northern to southern coastlines of the country and is largely intact and uninhabited.

Australia, like the UK, has a prime minister. While Elizabeth II is technically the Queen of Australia, she has no say in the day-to-day decisions of the country.

Australia is very old, isolated and has a range of weather patterns and habitats. This had led to an incredibly diverse and unique collection of plants and animals to thrive. For example, over 80% of the mammals found in Australia are found nowhere else on earth.

Australia is the third most highly ranked country on earth according to the human development index. As of 2018, only Norway and Switzerland sit above it. Factors like life expectancy, access to education, and income per capita all help inform where a country falls on the human development index.

Australia is the driest inhabited continent. About 80% of the continent's land gets less than 2 feet of rain per year.

Australia has shores on both the Pacific and Indian oceans. It it also separated from Asia and New Zealand by several seas.

Australian English is not specified in any government documents as the legal national language of Australia. However, as the first language of most of the population, it is the functional de facto national language.

In 1783, the British sent men to establish a penal colony in Australia, their holding at the time called New South Wales. A penal colony is a place where prisoners are exiled away from the general public.

While most people call it Australia, the official name of this country is The Commonwealth of Australia. It is a sovereign state that takes up the mainland of the Australian continent.

Australia is the largest country in the area of Oceania. Its other neighbors in Oceania include New Zealand, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea.

Australia is the 6th largest country on earth by total land area. It sits between Brazil and India in terms of land area, but only has a population of about 25 million.

Indigenous Australians were not prepared to deal with the diseases of the West, and were also killed and discriminated against heavily by Europeans. Violence and policy caused their populations to massively decline.

Australia has one of the world's largest immigrant populations. Roughly a quarter of their population is immigrants who come from the UK, Europe, or Asia.

Canberra is Australia's capital. It is Australia's largest inland city, but not its largest overall city.

Australia has one of the largest defense budgets on earth of any country. It currently has troops deployed around the world in the Middle East, Africa and the Pacific.

Sydney is Australia's largest major metropolitan area. It has a population of over 4 million and is considered to be one of the world's most livable cities year after year.

Australia became an independent nation on Jan. 1, 1901. On this day, British Parliament passed legislation allowing Australia to govern themselves as part of the Commonwealth of Australia.

The Dutch first discovered Australia in 1606. They initially named it New Holland.

Historically, Australia largely tried to prevent immigrants from China and throughout Asia from settling there. This began with its creation as a nation in 1901, however the policies which supported this were gone by the early 1970s.

Australia is broken up into 6 states and 10 territories. The mainland states of Australia are New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria and Western Australia.

Australia is nearly 3 million square miles in size and contains a lot of diverse landscapes and animals. Deserts, mountains, rainforests, cityscapes and more can be found across the continent.

Australia is famously home to some of the world's most dangerous animals. Its famously poisonous snakes include: The eastern brown snake, mainland tiger snake, inland taipan and Mulga snake.

Australia is highly developed, with one of the world's largest economies. It has a high-income economy, which is one of the main factors that makes a country a first world country.

For decades, the Australian government took indigenous children from their parents and communities in an attempt to assimilate them. It is estimated that between 1910-1970, as much as one-third of all indigenous Australian children were taken from their families.

Australia is a commonwealth of Great Britain. In 1914, it joined World War I fighting on the side of Britain. Australian soldiers took part in many major battles on the Western Front.

Since 1951 Australia has been a formal military ally of the U.S. This is the result of a treaty between the U.S., New Zealand, and Australia.

Many of Australia's biomes and plant and animal species are threatened by human activities. Their country has the highest mammal extinction rate of any country on earth.

Australia is the world' smallest continent, and is often called the island continent. Due to being a massive landmass surrounded by water on all sides, it is sometimes considered to be the world's largest island.

Australia is famous for the Great Barrier Reef. As the world's largest coral reef, it extends for over 1,200 miles off the country's northeast coast.

While population density varies a lot across Australia, overall it has a population density of roughly 3.3 people per square km. This makes it one of the most sparsely populated countries on earth.

Australia surpassed Switzerland in 2018. In terms of average wealth for its citizens, it is the richest country on earth.

Native Australian populations face higher levels of imprisonment and unemployment than other Australian populations. Men and women of native descent also have life expectancies between 10-20 years shorter than other Australians.

About 30% of Australians reported to belong to no religion at all. The largest religious denomination on the continent is Roman Catholic, with over 20% of Australians claiming to be Roman Catholic.