welcome to Lento English Ready to level up your English here we learn through stories slow clear and fun Listen relax and enjoy the journey One introduction Australia is a very big country It is one of the biggest countries in the world It is about 7.68 million square kilometers in size But Australia does not have many people living in it The country has about 26 million people This is a small number for such a large place To help understand how few people live in Australia we can compare it to other places The United States of America is about the same size as Australia but many more people live in the United States over 300 million people This means Australia is much more empty than the United States Also there are countries that are much smaller than Australia but have more people For example England is much smaller than Australia but it has more than double the number of people There are also some islands that are smaller than Australia but have more people living on them Most people in Australia live near the sea They live in cities that are on the coast Cities like Sydney Melbourne and Brisbane have many people These cities are all near the ocean on the east coast Another big city Perth is on the west coast About 90% of all Australians live in cities or towns About 85% of Australians live within 50 kilometers of the coast This means the land far away from the sea is very empty Think about some examples of this emptiness There is a large area in Western Australia that is about the same size as the country of Japan Japan has over 120 million people But this large area in Australia has only about 10,000 people Most of these people live in just one small town in that area There is also a very large area in South Australia It is about the same size as the country of France France has over 65 million people but this area in South Australia has only about 3,750 people This shows how much land there is for each person in some parts of Australia There is even a cattle farm that is very large It is bigger than the country of Israel but only a few people work and live on this farm So Australia is a very big country but most of it has very few people The population is mostly in cities near the coast The large middle part of the country is very empty This book will try to answer the question why is Australia so empty there are different reasons for this Some reasons are about the land and the weather Australia has a lot of dry land and deserts The weather is sometimes very hot or unpredictable Other reasons are about the past and the history of the country How did people first come to Australia how did the number of people grow over time why did not many people come from other countries for a long time in the next chapters we will learn more about these reasons We will look at the dry land the water the farming land and the history of people coming to Australia This will help us understand why Australia is a big country with only a small number of people Two the dry land Australia is known for being a very dry country A large part of Australia is desert or land that looks like desert In fact about 35% of this big continent has very dry conditions This makes Australia the driest continent in the world where people live There are several reasons why so much of Australia is dry One reason is about the seaater on the west side Cold ocean currents come from the south from near Antarctica These cold currents cool the air above the sea Cold water and cold air do not make much water go into the air as gas This process is called evaporation You need a lot of water in the air to make clouds that bring rain So because the water and air are cold on the west side not many rain clouds form there This means less rain falls on the west coast and the land near it Another important reason is found in the east of Australia There is a long line of hills and mountains along the east coast This is called the great dividing range These mountains run for a very long way When rain clouds come from the Pacific Ocean in the east these mountains act like a high wall They are tall enough to stop the clouds from moving far across the land to the west The clouds drop their rain on the eastern side of the mountains near the coast The land on the other side of the mountains to the west gets very little rain People call this area a rain shadow The mountains block the rain Australia is also quite flat and low compared to other continents on Earth It does not have many very tall mountains like other places Tall mountains are important for making rain They force the air to rise up into the sky When air goes up high it gets cold Cold air can make water turn into liquid drops which form clouds and then rain Because Australia is mostly flat and low the air does not get pushed up and cooled as much This means less rain can form over large areas of the country The air over Australia is often very hot especially in the middle and northern parts Hot air is not good for making rain It holds water as gas but it does not easily form clouds and rain Also a big weather system of high air pressure stays over much of Australia High pressure pushes air down Air going down stops clouds and rain from forming This hot sinking air makes the land below very dry Sometimes the weather pattern in the Pacific Ocean changes in a big way This is called El Nino When El Nino happens it can make the eastern and northern parts of Australia much drier than they usually are These dry periods can last for a long time sometimes for a year or more They can cause serious droughts where there is almost no rain All these things the cold sea currents in the west the mountains blocking rain in the east the flat and low land the hot air and weather changes like El Nino work together They make large parts of Australia a very dry place This environment is difficult for people to live in and grow food This is a main reason why many Australians live near the coast where there is more rain and water Three water in Australia Sometimes Australia gets a lot of rain but at other times the weather is very dry This dry time can last for a long time even for several years This happens because of something called El Nino El Nino changes the weather patterns in the large Pacific Ocean This often means less rain falls over eastern and northern parts of Australia These long dry periods can cause serious problems like making the land very dry and leading to bushfires In the north of Australia near the top of the country the weather is different from the rest of the continent It has two main parts to the year A wet season and a dry season The wet season is usually in the summer months from December to March During this time there is very heavy rain Sometimes there are big storms called tropical cyclones that bring a lot of water in a short time After the wet season finishes it becomes very dry for many months with almost no rain The amount of rain in the north can be very different from one year to the next This means the water supply is not always certain Australia does not have many big rivers compared to other large countries around the world The rivers are often smaller and do not carry as much water The most important river system is called the Murray Darling Basin It is located in the southeast part of the country This river system is very important for water in Australia It provides drinking water to around 3 million people who live in towns and cities in that area It also gives water to many farms Farmers in the Murray Darling Basin use this water to grow a lot of the food that Australians eat such as fruit vegetables and grain This area is sometimes called the food bowl of Australia because of its importance for agriculture However the Murray Darling River system does not have as much water flowing in it as some of the world's biggest rivers For example the Mississippi River system in the United States carries much much more water each year The amount of water in the Murray Darling can change a lot depending on how much rain falls in the areas where the rivers start Today the problem with water in Australia is getting bigger This is because of climate change The weather is getting warmer and there are more hot days When it is warmer water dries up faster from rivers lakes and the ground This process is called evaporation With less rain in some areas and more evaporation there is less water available for people and for farms Sometimes during long dry periods parts of the Murray Darling River system become completely dry for many months This makes it very hard to live and farm in these areas A climate change is making the challenge of water scarcity in Australia worse Water is a very important and difficult issue for the country's future Finding ways to use water carefully is very important Four land for food The ground in many parts of Australia is very old This is true especially in the north For a very long time millions of years new mountains did not grow there Also there was no ice that moved and changed the ground like in other places in the world Because of this the ground has been under the sun and rain for more than 250 million years This long time has made the ground not good for growing food in many places It is hard for plants to grow well in this old soil However even with areas of poor ground Australia has good things too It has a lot of fresh water If you compare Australia to many other countries it has more water It has enough water for millions of people Australia also has a lot of good land for farming Not all of the land is good only about 6% But Australia is a very big country So 6% is still a very large area This area is bigger than the total farming land in many countries with many more people For example it has more farming land than seven countries in Asia altogether And those countries have more than 500 million people Because Australia has a lot of good land and not many people each person in Australia has a lot of farming land This is more land per person than in any other country in the world If Australia had the same amount of farming land per person as a country like the United States it could have more than 90 million people living there So in theory Australia has enough land and water to feed many more people than live there now Australia is a big country for making food It makes a lot of food and sends it to other countries It has many sheep more than 100 million That is four times more sheep than people Australia sells a lot of wool and meat from sheep It also sells a lot of meat from cows Five A long way away For many millions of years Australia was a continent far away from other large land masses It floated alone in the big ocean This long time of being separate meant that the plants and animals in Australia grew and changed in special ways Animals like kangaroos and koalas which carry their young in a pouch are found mostly in Australia They developed differently from animals in other continents because Australia was so isolated for such a long time The first people came to this far off land a very long time ago Scientists think this was about 50,000 years ago The world was different then The sea was lower This made it possible for people to move from parts of Asia across islands They could reach a large land mass that included what is now New Guinea and Australia These first people were the ancestors of the indigenous Australians who live there today After these first people arrived Australia became even more isolated The last ice age ended As the ice melted the sea level around the world went up The land that connected Australia to New Guinea went under the water Australia became a large island surrounded by deep seas This happened about 10,000 years ago Because Australia was now an island so far away it was very difficult for people from other continents to reach it The journey by boat across the ocean was long and dangerous For many thousands of years very few people from other parts of the world visited Australia There was little contact with people from Europe Asia or Africa The indigenous Australians lived on the continent without many visitors from outside This long period of being separate is important It explains why life in Australia is unique It also explains why for a very long time the number of people living there was small compared to other continents Other parts of the world had more people moving between them sharing ideas and sometimes settling in new places but Australia was a long way away It was hard to get to This isolation lasted for thousands of years shaping the history and the population of the continent until much later times The vast ocean acted like a big wall keeping Australia separate from the rest of the world for a very very long time This long period of separation is a key reason why Australia is still not as full of people as many other places today The journey across the wide ocean was simply too difficult for most of history meaning far fewer people arrived over thousands of years Six new people arrive Some of the first people from Europe to see Australia were Dutch explorers This was a long time ago in the 1600s They came on ships and saw parts of the land They explored some areas along the coast of this large continent but they decided not to build towns or places to live there permanently They thought the land was not suitable for starting a new life So the Dutch explorers did not stay for long periods Much later new people came from Britain This was in the year 1788 They came on many ships bringing many people and supplies They started the first place where European people lived all the time a permanent settlement This first British colony was near the place we now call Sydney on the east coast There were about 1,300 people from Britain when they first arrived to start this new life in Australia When these new people came to Australia they brought many things with them across the long sea journey They brought their way of life their tools and new animals like sheep and cows that had not been in Australia before They also brought sicknesses These were sicknesses that the indigenous Australians had never experienced before in their land Because of this their bodies did not have strong ways to fight these new illnesses that came from Europe They had no natural protection One very bad sickness that the British brought was called smallpox Indigenous Australians had no immunity against it because it was completely new to the continent So when they caught smallpox they became extremely ill very quickly Many many indigenous people died from this sickness It was a very difficult and sad time for the indigenous communities in the area around the new British settlement near Sydney The effect of smallpox was terrible About half of the indigenous people living there died from this sickness in just one year after the British ships arrived This terrible sickness also spread to other places where indigenous people lived sometimes carried by people or animals For example the area later called Port Phillip also saw many indigenous people die because of the sickness The British people who came had some knowledge about these kinds of sicknesses that were common in Europe They had some ways to help people who were sick like simple medicines or ways to care for the ill to help them recover But they did not give help to the indigenous communities who were suffering greatly from these diseases They did not try to stop the sickness from spreading among the indigenous people or help those who were dying Many indigenous Australians died because they had no help and no natural protection against these new diseases brought by the Europeans This arrival of new people and the introduction of new sicknesses had a very large and negative impact on the people who had lived in Australia for a very long time It was a major change for the continent Seven Growing bigger slowly For a long time Australia's population did not grow very fast In 1788 when British people made their first home there the whole country had around 650,000 people This was a very small number compared to other parts of the world Asia had many many more people maybe a thousand times more It was difficult for Australia to get new people from Europe The trip was very long and cost a lot of money Countries like America were much closer to Europe So many people who wanted to leave Europe chose to go to America or other places instead of Australia There was one time when many people came in the 1850s People found gold in Australia This started a gold rush A lot of people mostly from Britain came hoping to find gold This helped the population grow faster for a short time But for many years the government had rules about who could come to live in Australia These rules made it hard for many people to enter the country They mostly wanted people from Britain and other parts of Europe This policy called the white Australia policy meant that not many people came from other countries This also made the population grow slowly Wars also stopped the population from getting bigger quickly For example in World War I many Australian men went to fight in Europe A lot of them did not come back home This meant fewer people in the country By the time of the Second World War Australia had about 7 million people This was still a small number compared to countries in Asia that were closer The country was growing but it was growing slowly for a long time because of the distance the cost of travel the government rules and the wars Eight A modern country After the second world war Australia started to invite more people to live there The government wanted the country to grow bigger They specially asked people from Europe to come Millions of people came from different European countries in the years after the war For a long time there were rules about who could come to Australia These rules meant that mostly people from Britain and Europe could move there But in 1973 these rules changed The white Australia policy ended Now people from all countries were welcome to come and live in Australia This was a big change Today Australia is a country with people from all over the world Many new people who come to Australia now are from countries in Asia For example many people come from China and India Australia is now a multicultural country Today nearly one in three people living in Australia was born in another country This means that people speak many different languages and have many different customs Australia is a mix of many cultures Australia is a modern country but it still has problems with its environment It is still a very dry continent The weather is changing because of climate change This makes the problems with water worse in some areas It can be very hard to find enough water for farms and cities But Australia is also a big producer of food It grows food for its own people and sells a lot to other countries It is also famous for its sheep There are many many sheep in Australia More than 100 million That is about four sheep for every person Australia is one of the biggest sellers of wool in the world It also sells a lot of meat So even with the dry land and climate challenges Australia is an important country for farming and food for the world