Study Abroad

Australia, the smallest continent and one of the largest countries on Earth, lying between the Pacific and Indian oceans in the Southern Hemisphere. Australia’s capital is Canberra, located in the southeast between the larger and more important economic and cultural centres of Sydney and Melbourne.

The Australian mainland extends from west to east for nearly 2,500 miles (4,000 km) and from Cape York Peninsula in the northeast to Wilsons Promontory in the southeast for nearly 2,000 miles (3,200 km). To the south, Australian jurisdiction extends a further 310 miles (500 km) to the southern extremity of the island of Tasmania, and in the north it extends to the southern shores of Papua New Guinea. Australia is separated from Indonesia to the northwest by the Timor and Arafura seas, from Papua New Guinea to the northeast by the Coral Sea and the Torres Strait, from the Coral Sea Islands Territory by the Great Barrier Reef, from New Zealand to the southeast by the Tasman Sea, and from Antarctica in the far south by the Indian Ocean.

Australia has been called “the Oldest Continent,” “the Last of Lands,” and “the Last Frontier.” Those descriptions typify the world’s fascination with Australia, but they are somewhat unsatisfactory. In simple physical terms, the age of much of the continent is certainly impressive—most of the rocks providing the foundation of Australian landforms were formed during Precambrian and Paleozoic time (some 4.6 billion to 252 million years ago)—but the ages of the cores of all the continents are approximately the same. On the other hand, whereas the landscape history of extensive areas in Europe and North America has been profoundly influenced by events and processes that occurred since late in the last Ice Age—roughly the past 25,000 years—in Australia scientists use a more extensive timescale that takes into account the great antiquity of the continent’s landscape.

The United Kingdom, also called the U.K., consists of a group of islands off the northwest coast of Europe. It is a unique country made up of four nations: England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. England, Wales, and Scotland also make up Great Britain.

Much of the north and west of the U.K. is covered in high ground, knife-edged mountain ridges separated by deep valleys. This terrain was shaped in the last Ice Age, when thick glaciers covered the land.

In the south of England, the countryside is mostly rolling hills.

In northwest England and the Scottish Highlands are dozens of lakes, called lochs. These were left behind when the Ice Age glaciers melted. They tend to be long and narrow, and some are very deep. Legends say that a giant monster called Nessie lives in Loch Ness in Scotland.

Destination New Zealand, a Nations Online country profile of the Land of the Long White Cloud or Aotearoa, the Māori name for New Zealand.

New Zealand (NZ) is an island country in the South Pacific Ocean located about 2,000 km (1,300 mi) southeast of Australia. The island-nation consists of some smaller islands and two main islands, the North Island (Te-Ika-a-Maui) and the South Island (Te Wai Pounamu), which are separated by the Cook Strait. New Zealand shares maritime borders with Australia, the island nations of Fiji and Tonga.

New Zealand's islands are the surface area of the continent of Zealandia. Zealandia, now, for the most part, submerged, was formerly a large portion of the super-continent of Gondwanaland.

The geopolitical entity of the Realm of New Zealand comprises New Zealand, the Cook Islands, Niue (an island), Tokelau (some coral atolls), and the Ross Dependency, a region in Antarctica.

With an area of 270,467 km², the country is slightly larger than the United Kingdom (242,900 km²), or about the size of the US State of Colorado.

New Zealand has a population of 5.1 million people (beginning 2021). The capital is Wellington, the country's largest city is Auckland. Spoken languages are English (95%) and Māori, the language of the indigenous Māori people of New Zealand.