Why 95% of Australia is Empty

Select video clips courtesy of Getty Images

Select video clips courtesy of the AP Archive

Special thanks to MapTiler / OpenStreetMap Contributors and GEOlayers 3

[Dervraka]

Absolutely true, being from the US I thought some of the Western US States were barren because, in some areas, you could drive 30-40 miles and not see a town or gas station. I visited a college friend from Australia and he decided to give me the full "Outback" experience, I knew something was up when he started filling the back of his SUV with gas cans. We drove close to 800 miles and saw NOTHING in the way of humanity. It was seriously like being on Mars or something

[masonhiggins]

As an Aussie I have a lot of respect for this video, taking the time to actually explain our population density and geography. However if you asked any Australian why no one lives inland you'd get a pretty standard answer "cause it's too f***ing hot"

[tomohalloran]

As someone that lives in the interior of Australia the only thing I think this video forgot to mention explicitly is the wild temperature variation. It's currently negative 5 degrees where I live and in 4 months time it's likely to be 35 degrees plus. And I live in one of the more reasonable areas of the country. Australia is a harsh unforgiving environment with a lot of dangerous things to be aware of

[olig]

I am an Australian and for most of my life I lived in the populated areas. (Adelaide and the Sunshine Coast in Queensland). In 2023 I went on a trip around Australia, and as soon as I left the sunshine coast it was just barren desert, basically the whole entire way until Darwin, only with tiny tiny towns consisting of one servo and a couple broken down houses once every 4 hours. Darwin itself was tiny as well, even though it is the capital of the northern territory. After that we went to the kimberley region in western Australia, and the whole entire coastline is inhabited by no one. Literally. Not a single town or road goes through the kimberley coastline, which is 733 kilometres. To get to the coastline you had to take a helicopter ride to a tiny hotel. We went along the gibb river road there (spectacular area btw filled with gorges and waterfalls) and apart from very few tourists there was no one there either. We went along the whole entire Western Australian coastline and there was basically no one from Broome to Geraldton, and even then they were tiny towns. The coastline along that period is spectacular, filled with beautiful beaches that you cant comprehend and cliffs that drop into the ocean, and whenever you would visit a beach you would be by yourself. (The fishing was crazy too.) From geraldton to Albany along the southwest corner of Western Australia is sort of populated. There is actually some modern towns and supermarkets. Albany-Esperance is not populated at all basically, but once you leave Esperance there is NO ONE whatsoever. No tiny towns or servos. No nothing. The whole entire coastline for 730 kilometres is just tall windy cliffs that are uninhabitable and desert, and there is no civilizations or roads that go to the coastline, the only way to cross it is through a highway that turns into the desert. From fowlers bay to Adelaide there is also practically no one, even though there are beaches, just tiny fishing towns. I never truly understood how alone we are in Australia, and how crazy the climate and the creatures are outside of the populated areas. If you live in perth you are basically separated from society, even though it is a populated area, there is nobody for thousands of kilometres. The problem is that during the majority of the year in Australia, particularly in the northern parts, it is incredibly hot with no water at all, and nearly no energy sources. Also a big problem up north is that from port headland in western australia to the town seventeen seventy in Queensland, there are so many crocodiles. You cant go swimming in any pretty beach or pretty river or else you will 100 percent guaranteed will be killed by a croc. The only places you can swim are in the freshwater areas, and it is so incredibly humid and dry outside of the water. There is only two seasons in the tropical half of Australia. The wet season and the dry season. During the wet, it is just constant flooding and cyclones which stops basically everything. During dry season there is not a drop of rain, and it is so dry and hot it is basically uninhabitable. (During the wet it is also incredibly hot.) Basically all year round the temperature is above 40 degrees. Once you get south, the water gets so cold and the temperature varies during the year. Some of the year is incredibly hot, and some of the year is incredibly cold.

[z-herb]

As an Australian it's hard to imagine places that have major cities close to each other

[crnpp]

I remember reading a book about AC/DC and they said before they were extremely famous whenever they toured in Europe they would laugh when other bands would complain about traveling a few hours between cities because they were use to driving thousands of kilometers between shows back in Australia.

[AviationCentral]

I’m an Aussie and I really do appreciate the effort that you have put into this video. Without watching the video I can confidently say that people in Australia live on the coasts because it’s more habitable with the beaches and it isn’t anywhere near as hot. Not many people live in the centre and nearing land due to the heat and how unbearable it would be to live there. The outback is basically desert where no one lives.

[keithad]

Victorian Aussie here. Did not know how vast Australia was until I lived in the WA outback about four hours north east of Kalgoorlie back a few years in the Great Victoria Desert. Though dry it has a beauty all of its own! WA Outback is a very different life style. I lived on a cattle station (ranch to the Yanks) of 500, 000 acres. The station north of us is 1.5 million acres! I was the only person living on 500, 000 acres! Had about 50 native sandalwood trees growing with in a mile of the homestead. I loved the serenity.

[TheMissiIe]

Fun Aussie Facts:
- The Australian Alps get more snow on average than the Swiss Alps
- Melbourne has the largest Greek population outside of Greece
- Tasmania has the cleanest air on the Planet
- The Australian accent developed from decades of heavy drinking (NOT TRUE, thanks to the people who commented telling me I was wrong)
- More than 25% of Australian citizens were born in other countries
- The first police force was made of the "best behaved" convicts
- If you visited one new beach every day, it would take you 29 years to visit all 10, 685 of them
- Australia was the 2nd country on the Planet to give women the right to vote (1902)

[anatexis_the_first]

I have circled Australia clockwise, starting and ending in Melbourne. It took me one year, working along the way to fund my travels that way. It was the adventure of a lifetime. Landscapes so vast and endless that you feel like the only person in the world. A beauty so rough and pristine that ten years later, I still dream of going back.

[stihllingyourstuff]

As an Australian Im thrilled that you made a video explaining why no one ever tries to invade us. Japan tried once and rumours tell me they're still trying to their way back out.

[jamiepender]

The map work in your videos is stellar. I love love love maps and you do a fantastic job of showing data in an easily visual way so it’s really easy to grasp.

[SB-uoto]

My favourite fact about the vastness of Australia is the fact that one of the country’s worst ever forest fires which destroyed over 1.5 million hectares of land in the early 20th century happened in such a remote area that no one even noticed it

[bangscutter]

As an Aussie travelling in Europe, it's mind-boggling to travel by train for just a few hours, and you're in another country. Whereas in Australia, the same time and distance, you'll still be in the same state. The most ridiculous was how Vienna and Bratislava, two capitals of two different countries, are only half an hour apart. Netherlands was the most insane, where all the cities' metropolitan areas have merged together and the whole country is basically one large metropolitan area.

[skatee]

Respectfully: I love how you use strong enunciation in your narration to make geography seem more interesting/important than it is at times. Lol

Keep up the good work.

[clancy]

I think it's safe to say that the Polynesians visited the continent long before the Dutch discovered it. Given how good sailors they were for their time and that they discovered basically every other plot of land in the rest of the Pacific Ocean

[CarlsGravy]

As an Australian, I could say that the reason majority of the continent is uninhabited is because of the heat, or the dry, or the lack of fertile soil, or the large array of deadly animals, but, any true Australian worth their salt knows full well that the REAL reason the size/population ratio is so disproportionate is because the Emu's pushed us all to the coastal areas in 1932.

RIP to those brave souls who died fighting for what little land we managed to hold from those ravenous birds.

[J_Stronsky]

As an Aussie, the mountain thing hit home because going overseas and seeing actual mountains broke my brain, in the same way I'm guessing that all our emptiness hits those who come to visit from very crowded cities/countries.

[menarussell]

This is excellent and informative on the history, geography, population and so much more about Australia. Thank you for all your hard work. I really enjoyed it.

[asullivan]

Interesting and informative. Excellent photography/map descriptions enabling viewers to better understand what the orator is describing.