Adelaide is the capital and largest city of South Australia, and the fifth-most populous city in Australia. "Adelaide" may refer to either Greater Adelaide or the Adelaide city centre. The demonym Adelaidean is used to denote the city and the residents of Adelaide. The traditional owners of the Adelaide region are the Kaurna. The area of the city centre and surrounding Park Lands is called Tarndanya in the Kaurna language.
The Australian Labor Party (ALP), also commonly known as the Labor Party or simply Labor, is the major centre-left political party in Australia and one of two major parties in Australian politics, along with the centre-right Liberal Party of Australia. The party has been in government since being elected at the 2022 federal election, and with political branches in each state and territory, they currently form government in New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Victoria, Western Australia, the Australian Capital Territory, and the Northern Territory. As of 2023, Tasmania is the only state or territory where Labor forms the opposition. It is the oldest continuous political party in Australian history, being established on 8 May 1901 at Parliament House, Melbourne, the meeting place of the first federal Parliament.
The Cricket World Cup is the international championship of One Day International (ODI) cricket. The event is organised by the sport's governing body, the International Cricket Council (ICC), every four years, with preliminary qualification rounds leading up to a finals tournament. The tournament is one of the world's most viewed sporting events and considered as the "flagship event of the international cricket calendar" by the ICC. It is widely considered the pinnacle championship of the sport of cricket.
New South Wales is a state on the east coast of Australia. It borders Queensland to the north, Victoria to the south, and South Australia to the west. Its coast borders the Coral and Tasman Seas to the east. The Australian Capital Territory and Jervis Bay Territory are enclaves within the state. New South Wales' state capital is Sydney, which is also Australia's most populous city. In December 2023, the population of New South Wales was over 8.3 million, making it Australia's most populous state. Almost two-thirds of the state's population, 5.3 million, live in the Greater Sydney area.
Oceania is a geographical region including Australasia, Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. Outside of the English-speaking world, Oceania is generally considered a continent, while Australia is regarded as an island or a continental landmass contained inside of the larger continent of Oceania. Spanning the Eastern and Western Hemispheres, at the centre of the water hemisphere, Oceania is estimated to have a land area of about 9,000,000 square kilometres (3,500,000 sq mi) and a population of around 44.4 million as of 2022. When compared to the continents, Oceania is the smallest in land area and the second-least populated after Antarctica.
Perth is the capital city of Western Australia. It is the fourth most populous city in Australia, with a population of over 2.3 million within Greater Perth as of 2023. It is part of the South West Land Division of Western Australia, with most of Perth's metropolitan area on the Swan Coastal Plain between the Indian Ocean and the Darling Scarp. The city has expanded outward from the original British settlements on the Swan River, upon which its central business district and port of Fremantle are situated.
South Australia is a state in the southern central part of Australia. It covers some of the most arid parts of the country. With a total land area of 984,321 square kilometres (380,048 sq mi), it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories by area, and second smallest state by population. It has a total of 1.8 million people. Its population is the second most highly centralised in Australia, after Western Australia, with more than 77 percent of South Australians living in the capital Adelaide, or its environs. Other population centres in the state are relatively small; Mount Gambier, the second-largest centre, has a population of 26,878.
Sydney is the capital city of the state of New South Wales and the most populous city in Australia. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about 80 km from the Pacific Ocean in the east to the Blue Mountains in the west, and about 80 km from the Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park and the Hawkesbury River in the north and north-west, to the Royal National Park and Macarthur in the south and south-west. Greater Sydney consists of 658 suburbs, spread across 33 local government areas. Residents of the city are colloquially known as "Sydneysiders". The estimated population in June 2023 was 5,450,496, which is about 66% of the state's population. The city's nicknames include the "Emerald City" and the "Harbour City".
Western Australia (WA) is a state of Australia occupying the western third of the land area of Australia, excluding external territories. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east, and South Australia to the south-east. With a total land area of 2,527,013 square kilometres (975,685 sq mi), Western Australia is Australia's largest state as well as the second-largest subdivision of any country on Earth, surpassed only by the Sakha Republic in eastern Russia. As of 2021, the state has 2.91 million inhabitants—11 percent of the national total. The vast majority live in the south-west corner; 79 percent of the population lives in the Perth area, leaving the remainder of the state sparsely populated.
Queensland is a state in northeastern Australia, the second-largest and third-most populous of the Australian states. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Australia and New South Wales to the west, southwest and south respectively. To the east, Queensland is bordered by the Coral Sea and the Pacific Ocean; to its north is the Torres Strait, separating the Australian mainland from Papua New Guinea, and the Gulf of Carpentaria to the north-west. With an area of 1,723,030 square kilometres (665,270 sq mi), Queensland is the world's sixth-largest subnational entity; it is larger than all but 16 countries. Due to its size, Queensland's geographical features and climates are diverse, including tropical rainforests, rivers, coral reefs, mountain ranges and sandy beaches in its tropical and sub-tropical coastal regions, as well as deserts and savanna in the semi-arid and desert climatic regions of its interior.
Brisbane is the capital of the state of Queensland and the third-most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a population of approximately 2.6 million. Brisbane lies at the centre of South East Queensland, which includes several other regional centres and cities. The central business district is situated within a peninsula of the Brisbane River about 15 km (9 mi) from its mouth at Moreton Bay. Brisbane is located in the hilly floodplain of the Brisbane River Valley between Moreton Bay and the Taylor and D'Aguilar mountain ranges. It sprawls across several local government areas, most centrally the City of Brisbane. The demonym of Brisbane is Brisbanite.
Super Rugby is a men's professional rugby union club competition involving teams from Australia, Fiji, New Zealand, and the Pacific Islands. It has previously included teams from Argentina, Japan, and South Africa. Super Rugby started as the Super 12 in the 1996 season with 12 teams from Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa, building on competitions dating back to the South Pacific Championship in 1986. The Super 12 was established by SANZAR after the sport became professional in 1995. After the COVID-19 pandemic forced the competition to split into three, the reformed competition in 2021 only included teams from Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific islands.
The Australia men's national cricket team represents Australia in men's international cricket. As the joint oldest team in Test cricket history, playing in the first ever Test match in 1877, the team also plays One-Day International (ODI) and Twenty20 International (T20I) cricket, participating in both the first ODI, against England in the 1970–71 season and the first T20I, against New Zealand in the 2004–05 season, winning both games. The team draws its players from teams playing in the Australian domestic competitions – the Sheffield Shield, the Australian domestic limited-overs cricket tournament and the Big Bash League. Australia are the current ICC World Test Championship and ICC Cricket World Cup champions. They are regarded as most successful cricket teams in the history of Cricket.
The South Africa men's national cricket team, also known as the Proteas, represents South Africa in men's international cricket and is administered by Cricket South Africa (CSA). South Africa is a full member of the International Cricket Council (ICC). Its nickname derives from South Africa's national flower, Protea cynaroides, commonly known as the "King Protea".
Aboriginal Australians are the various Indigenous peoples of the Australian mainland and many of its islands, excluding the ethnically distinct people of the Torres Strait Islands.
Australia uses three main time zones: Australian Eastern Standard Time, Australian Central Standard Time and Australian Western Standard Time.
The states and territories are the second level of government of Australia. The states are administrative divisions that are self-governing polities that are partly sovereign, having ceded some sovereign rights to the federal government. They have their own constitutions, legislatures, executive governments, judiciaries and law enforcement agencies that administer and deliver public policies and programs. Territories can be autonomous and administer local policies and programs much like the states in practice, but are still legally subordinate to the federal government.
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. Australia is the largest country by area in Oceania and the world's sixth-largest country. Australia is the oldest, flattest, and driest inhabited continent, with the least fertile soils. It is a megadiverse country, and its size gives it a wide variety of landscapes and climates, with deserts in the centre, tropical rainforests in the north-east, tropical savannas in the north, and mountain ranges in the south-east.
Victoria is a state in southeastern Australia. It is the second-smallest state, with a land area of 227,444 km2 (87,817 sq mi); the second-most-populated state, with a population of over 6.7 million; and the most densely populated state in Australia. Victoria is bordered by New South Wales to the north and South Australia to the west and is bounded by the Bass Strait to the south, the Great Australian Bight portion of the Southern Ocean to the southwest, and the Tasman Sea to the southeast. The state encompasses a range of climates and geographical features from its temperate coastal and central regions to the Victorian Alps in the northeast and the semi-arid northwest.
Australasia is a subregion of Oceania, comprising Australia, New Zealand, and some neighbouring islands in the Pacific Ocean. The term is used in a number of different contexts, including geopolitically, physiogeographically, philologically, and ecologically, where the term covers several slightly different but related regions.
