---
title: "Australia — capital, area, population and currency"
description: "Australia: capital Canberra, area 7,741,220 km², population 27,614,411 (2025), currency Australian dollar. Languages, time zones and calling code."
url: https://atoneplace.net/country/australia/
site: "At One Place"
---

# Australia

**Australia: Capital Canberra**

7,741,220 km² · 27,614,411 people (2025) · Australian dollar

The sixth-largest country in the world and the only one that covers an entire continent. The Great Barrier Reef runs about 2,300 km and is the largest structure made by living organisms on Earth, visible from orbit. Around eighty percent of its mammals, reptiles and flowering plants exist nowhere else. Melbourne and Sydney are within roughly a hundred thousand people of each other, and which counts as the largest city depends on where the boundary is drawn.

## The facts

- **Capital:** Canberra
- **Area:** 7,741,220 km² — 2,988,901 sq mi
- **Population:** 27,614,411 (2025)
- **Density:** 3.6 people per km²
- **Currency:** Australian dollar (AUD, $)
- **Official language:** English
- **Time zones:** UTC+08:00, UTC+08:45, UTC+09:30, UTC+10:00, UTC+10:30
- **Calling code:** +61
- **Drives on the:** left
- **ISO codes:** AU · AUS
- **Continent:** Oceania

## How it compares

- **By area:** 6 of 200
- **By population:** 55 of 200

> Population is the only figure on this page that dates — it is a 2025 estimate and will drift. Area, capital, currency, languages, calling code and driving side change rarely or never.

## Countries of a similar size

| Country | Area (km²) | Population |
| --- | --- | --- |
| China | 9,596,960 | 1,406,585,000 |
| Brazil | 8,515,770 | 212,812,405 |
| Australia ← | 7,741,220 | 27,614,411 |
| India | 3,287,263 | 1,463,865,525 |
| Argentina | 2,780,400 | 45,851,378 |

## Common questions

### What is the capital of Australia?

Canberra

### What currency does Australia use?

The Australian dollar (AUD).

### How big is Australia?

7,741,220 km², or 2,988,901 square miles — 6 of 200 by area.

### Which side of the road does Australia drive on?

The left.

## Related pages

- [China](https://atoneplace.net/country/china/)
- [Brazil](https://atoneplace.net/country/brazil/)
- [India](https://atoneplace.net/country/india/)
- [Argentina](https://atoneplace.net/country/argentina/)
- [Papua New Guinea](https://atoneplace.net/country/papua-new-guinea/)
- [New Zealand](https://atoneplace.net/country/new-zealand/)
- [Fiji](https://atoneplace.net/country/fiji/)
- [Solomon Islands](https://atoneplace.net/country/solomon-islands/)
- [Vanuatu](https://atoneplace.net/country/vanuatu/)
- [Samoa](https://atoneplace.net/country/samoa/)
- [Kiribati](https://atoneplace.net/country/kiribati/)
- [Micronesia](https://atoneplace.net/country/micronesia/)

## Sources

- The World Factbook — Central Intelligence Agency (https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/) [Public domain (US Government)]
- World Bank Open Data — The World Bank (https://data.worldbank.org/) [CC BY 4.0]