Australia: The Culture of Distance - The Wise World Traveler: Becoming a Part of All that You Meet - page 282

19. Australia: The Culture of Distance
Without evil, there would be no history,
— Manning Clark [248]
And he sees the vision splendid of the sunlit plains extended,
And at night the wondrous glory of the everlasting stars.
— A.B.”Banjo” Patterson [249]
Australia is the world's largest island and the world's smallest continent, less than three mil-
lion square miles (about the size of the United States). With a population of over twenty-
three million, it is also the least populated continent, except, of course, for Antarctica.
Eighty-five percent of Australians live on the Boomerang Coast, a narrow arc along the
southeastern seaboard that runs from Melbourne to Brisbane. Australia stretches about 2,500
miles west to east and about 2,000 miles south to north. As a result, Perth on the east coast is
closer to Singapore and Bali than to cities on the west coast. Those who travel inland from
Perth will find a mostly empty continent for about 2,000 miles. Two-thirds of Australia is in
the tropics, but only 3 percent of the population lives there. [250]