Here are 10 of the most interesting and funny fun facts about Australia!
- As of 2012, over 25% of Australia’s residents were born overseas, and it’s expected to rise rapidly.
- Former Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke once held the Guiness World Record for the fastest beer sculling!
- Australia is the driest of any continent on earth other than Antarctica.
- Australia’s dingo fence is longer than the Great Wall of China.
- Australia’s alps receive more snowfall annually than the alps in Switzerland!
- 80 percent of Australians believe Australia has a strong culture and identity characterised by being down to earth, honesty, sports & mate-ship, and multiculturalism based on research organised by the Australia Day Council in 2008.
- Canberra was selected as the capital because Sydney and Melbourne couldn’t stop arguing which city should be the capital of Australia.
- Australians refer to English people as POME, which is actually the acronym for “Prisoners of Mother England”.
- Over 200 different languages and dialects are spoken in Australia, including 45 Indigenous languages. The most common non-English spoken languages are Italian, Greek, Cantonese, Arabic, Vietnamese and Mandarin.
- In 2005, the government issued a ban on saying the word ‘mate’ at Parliament House, which lasted 24 hours before it was overturned.
