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OpenCage πŸ‘‰πŸŒ

3/ The various islands are quite diverse, each with its own history and geography. Heard Island in the southern Indian Ocean has Mawson Peak, Australia’s highest mountain, and active volcano πŸŒ‹

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mawson_P

Mawson Peak
Map of Heard Island
Map showing the location of Heard Island
14 comments
OpenCage πŸ‘‰πŸŒ

4/ The Cocos (Keeling) Islands πŸ‡¨πŸ‡¨ (ISO code "CC") are very remote and only became part of Australia πŸ‡¦πŸ‡Ί in 1955, having previously been part of the British Colony of Singapore πŸ‡¬πŸ‡§ πŸ‡ΈπŸ‡¬

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cocos_(K

Map of the Cocos (Keeling) Islands
Map showing the location of the Cocos (Keeling) Islands
OpenCage πŸ‘‰πŸŒ

5/ Many of Australia's smaller islands are tiny sea exclaves, outside of Australia's main territorial waters

#geoweirdness

Map showing some tiny islands near Papua New Guinea that belong to Australia
OpenCage πŸ‘‰πŸŒ

6/ The administrative organisation of Australia πŸ‡¦πŸ‡Ί is complex, with 6 states, 3 internal territories, and 7 external territories. The internal divisions have changed several times as the population grew.

All the details are over on Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territor

Map showing administrative organisation of Australia in 1829
OpenCage πŸ‘‰πŸŒ

7/ As you can see in the map, New Zealand πŸ‡³πŸ‡Ώ was originally part of the colony of New South Wales, and was later invited to join Australia as a state.

New Zealand said no.
nzhistory.govt.nz/page/nz-says

#geoweirdness

Map showing New Zealand as part of the Colony of New South Wales
OpenCage πŸ‘‰πŸŒ

8/ Due to sheer size and difficult mapping conditions, it wasn’t always easy to survey Australia and this sometimes lead to disputes.

A long-running disagreement was the South Australia–Victoria border situation
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Au

#geoweirdness

Map showing border between South Australia and Victoria
OpenCage πŸ‘‰πŸŒ

9/ The location of the ACT (Australian Capital Territory) was specifically chosen as capital because it was midway between the two largest cities Sydney and Melbourne.

Then the tiny Jervis Bay Territory was created so the ACT would have access to the sea.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jervis_B

It's surprising how many countries move capital, 14 in last 50 years as we covered in the Oct 2022 #fridaygeotrivia
blog.opencagedata.com/post/geo

9/ The location of the ACT (Australian Capital Territory) was specifically chosen as capital because it was midway between the two largest cities Sydney and Melbourne.

Then the tiny Jervis Bay Territory was created so the ACT would have access to the sea.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jervis_B

Map of the Australian Capital Territory
Map of Jervis Bay Territory
OpenCage πŸ‘‰πŸŒ

10/ Final #geoweirdness fact: Australia is home to the worlds longest highway: Highway 1 - over 14,500 km / 9,000 miles πŸ›£οΈπŸššπŸ¦˜

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highway_

Map of Australia's highway 1
OpenCage πŸ‘‰πŸŒ

11/ We hope you enjoyed our look at Australian πŸ‡¦πŸ‡Ί #geoweirdness. Thanks for reading (and sharing) πŸ™

If you like our look at Australia you may enjoy our thread about

New Zealand πŸ‡³πŸ‡Ώ en.osm.town/@opencage/11000952

or a country Australia is often confused with: Austria πŸ‡¦πŸ‡Ή
en.osm.town/@opencage/11044554

We have many more threads about other countries, border disputes, exclaves, geocoding, etc listed on our blog.
blog.opencagedata.com/geothrea

We'll feature more countries in coming weeks and months

11/ We hope you enjoyed our look at Australian πŸ‡¦πŸ‡Ί #geoweirdness. Thanks for reading (and sharing) πŸ™

If you like our look at Australia you may enjoy our thread about

New Zealand πŸ‡³πŸ‡Ώ en.osm.town/@opencage/11000952

or a country Australia is often confused with: Austria πŸ‡¦πŸ‡Ή
en.osm.town/@opencage/11044554

Screenshot of the OpenCage blog page featuring our geothreads
OpenCage πŸ‘‰πŸŒ replied to OpenCage

12/ Final bonus #geoweirdness tweet - here's a world map from the Australian πŸ‡¦πŸ‡Ί perspective 🀯

World map with south at the top, north at bottom
Ilse Heemskerk replied to OpenCage

@opencage Stop it! I already have no sense of direction.

Mike, First of His Name replied to OpenCage

@opencage I'm surprised this thread missed the Victoria/Tasmania land border. :awesome:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boundary

Mike, First of His Name replied to OpenCage

@opencage one of my favourite weird things in my backyard. I really want to go there one day, somehow.

SK53

@opencage There's a 60-odd year old account of a failed attempt on Mawson Peak here (and also another account of climbing in Australia proper): frcc.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/

Remember reading the former when I was a child.

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