How big is Australia?

The 7,688,287 square kilometre area of Australia makes it the sixth largest country in the world. The size of Australia is more than twice that of India, and the distance from Sydney to Perth is longer than London to Nicosia in Cyprus.

How big is Australia? Well, everyone knows that the size of Australia is pretty huge. So huge that it is classed a continent rather than the world’s biggest island. But just how big is Australia on an international scale? Let’s start with the official statistics…

According to Geoscience Australia, the area of Australia 7,688,287 square kilometres. Of that, 7,656,127 square kilometres is the mainland and 32,160 square kilometres is islands. For calculating the area of Australia, incidentally, Geoscience Australia includes mainland Tasmania as part of mainland Australia. Mainland Tasmania is Australia’s biggest island, by some distance.

Area of Australia compared to other countries

The size of Australia makes it the sixth largest country in the world, covering about 5.2% of the earth’s total landmass. The only countries bigger than Australia are Russia, Canada, China, the United States and Brazil.

Australia is in sixth by a considerable distance, too. The area of Australia is more than twice as big as that of India, which comes seventh in the table. If you lop Alaska and Hawaii off the United States, the contiguous 48 US states are slightly bigger than Australia.

Size of Australia: Distances between cities

If you’re asking “how big is Australia?” another way to look at it is the distances between the cities. As the crow flies, the distance from Darwin in the Northern Territory to Sydney in New South Wales in the south east is 3,149km. That distance from Darwin to Sydney is considerably longer by road – 3,942km. For a comparison point, the distance from London to Nicosia in Cyprus is 3,217km – only a tiny bit longer.

Another useful indicator of the size of Australia is the distance between Sydney on the east coast and Perth on the west coast. The Sydney to Perth distance is 3,291km – longer than London to Nicosia, and further than Chicago to Los Angeles.

Australian state areas

Obviously, this means some of Australia’s states are pretty darned big too. These are the areas of Australia’s states and territories according to Geoscience Australia.

Western Australia area: 2,527,013 square kilometres

Queensland area: 1,729,742 square kilometres

Northern Territory area: 1,347,791 square kilometres

South Australia area: 984,321 square kilometres

New South Wales area: 801,150 square kilometres

Victoria area: 227,444 square kilometres

Tasmania area: 68,401 square kilometres

Australian capital territory area: 2,358 square kilometres

Jervis Bay Territory area: 67 square kilometres.