How Australia’s location, climate, and Natural Resources have

affected where people live

Standard SS6G13

The student will explain the impact of location, climate, distribution of natural resources, and population distribution on Australia

Location of Australia

Australia is both a continent and a country. The continent lies about 2,000 miles

southeast of Asia. It is surrounded by the Pacific Ocean on the

east and the Indian Ocean on the west. The country lies in the southern hemisphere.

Australians say they come from a land “down under” because their country is on the lower part of the globe.

The coastal areas of Australia are the most highly populated.

Most people live along the eastern coast. The most populated city is Sydney, the

capital of the state of New South Wales.

Queensland is another state. It is seven times the size of England.

More than ½ of Queensland’s population lives near its capital city of Brisbane.

Nearly 80% of Australians live in urban areas.

That makes Australia one of the worlds most urbanized countries.

About 70% of all Australians live in cities of more than 100,000 people.

Sydney has about 3 ½ million people, and about 3 million people live in Melbourne.

Climate of Australia

The climate of Australia varies across the continent.

Australia is south of the equator, so the seasons are opposite of those in North America.

Its summers are December to March, and winters are June to September.

The northern part of Australia is closest to the equator. It has a tropical climate, and it is warm-to-hot all year long.

This area also gets more rain than other parts of the country.

There are seasons in this region, wet and dry. Winter is wetter and cooler than the hot and dry

summer.

Desert is the largest part of Australia. Little rain falls in the central part of the

country. Most of the central part of the country gets

less than 10 inches of rain a year.

Only the southeast and southwest corners have a temperate climate.

They have summers that are not too hot and winters that are not too cold.

The climate in these regions is the one that Australians like most.

In fact, most Australians live along the southeastern coast.

Natural Resources of Australia

Australians call the remote countryside the bush.

The term outback refers specifically to the continent’s dry interior.

The outback is mainly open countryside, including vast expanses of grazing land.

There are few widely scattered settlements in the outback.

Many of these outback settlements grew up around mining operations.

The Bolla Bollana copper smelter was established 1870 in the northern Flinders Ranges. There are a few ruins and this well-preserved kiln on the site. Bolla Bollana is just 7 km north-west from Arkaroola village along the track to the Yudnamutana mines.

For at least 40,000 years before Europeans settled here, Australia was inhabited by indigenous Australians, who belonged to one or more of the roughly 250 language groups. These Aboriginal groups probably migrated from south east Asia, using land bridges and short sea-crossings; they could have come via what is now Papua New Guinea, that was once attached to northern Australia. They could have crossed by land into Tasmania, before rising sea levels made it into an island. Most Indigenous Australians were hunter-gatherers, with a complex oral culture and spiritual values based on reverence for the land. The Torres Strait Islanders, ethnically Melanesian and related to people from mainland Papua New Guinea, were horticulturalists and hunter-gatherers and quite distinct from the Aboriginal groups living on the mainland.

Mining takes advantage of the natural resources in the ground.

Australians mine for coal, iron ore, copper, tin, gold, silver, uranium, nickel, tungsten, mineral sands, zinc, oil, and natural gas.

Australians lead the world in the production of diamonds and lead.

They also lead in the mining of bauxite, an ore from which we get aluminum.

Australia’s minerals are often found in areas that are difficult to reach.

Highways and railroads are expensive to build, but they are needed to get workers and machinery to remote locations.

Once these resources have been mined, expensive equipment is needed to move the minerals to populated areas for trade.

Another of Australia’s natural resources is arable land. There are enough areas with good land and rainfall to make farming an important business. Farmers in Australia produce more than Australians can consume.

The food from Australia’s farms is sold around the world.

Quiz Yourself

1. Which best describes where people live in Australia?

a. Most live in larger cities

b. Most live in rural areas on farms

c. Most live in the interior of the country

d. Most live on islands surrounding the mainland

2. What important business is done in the outback?

a. farming

b. fishing

c. mining

d. shipping

3. Why is southeastern Australia a popular place for Australians to live?a. It is near Ayers Rockb. Australians enjoy living near the oceanc. The government tells people to move to

this area. d. The climate in this region is not too hot or too cold.

4. Where is the largest concentration of people in Australia?

a. in the bush

b. near Darwin in the north

c. in central western Australia

d. in the state of New South Wales

5. Where is the coolest climate in Australia?

a. in the outback

b. in western Australia

c. in the Northern Territory

d. in Tasmania and the southeastern coast

6. Which city has the warmest climate?

a. Darwin

b. Sydney

c. Canberra

d. Melbourne