Australia's Weird Geographical Quirks

#australia #geography
Australia has some unique geographical quirks that you might not have already heard about. From surveying mistakes creating weird borders, to silly electoral boundaries Australia has a wealth of interesting geography.

00:00 - 00:46 Victoria-Tasmania land border
00:47 - 01:31 Quirks of the ACT
01:32 - 01:55 Lingiari
01:56 - 02:24 Anna Creek Station
02:25 - 03:21 Vic-NSW-SA border
03:22 - 04:43 WA-NT-SA border
04:44 - 05:23 Bonus!

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-Credits-
Photos of old-timey surveyors from the National Archives of Australia (out of copyright)
Map is Natural Earth 2 animated in Blender

-Sources-

[PBMS]

I had a miniature stroke when you said Jervis bay.... please my guy, it might be spelt Jervis, but its said Jarvis.

[TheWAYF]

"Tasmania, the only island state, ringed by ocean"
Surely you mean "girt by sea"?

[nunyabiznez]

I grew up in New England. I always thought of Canada as being north of me. In fact we used to drive up to Quebec every once in a while to see the sites and that was over a hundred miles north of me. So imagine the mind blowing discovery to find out that more than 50% of Canadians lived further south than I did.

[foreignparticle]

These kind of surveying mistakes give character to real life. I love it. And I'm still blown away by how close such vast calculations and navigation got to accuracy back in the day before computers, digital instruments and satellites were a thing.

[DodderingOldMan]

Wow, really interesting... I can't believe that, as an Australian, I didn't know until today that Tasmania and Victoria actually shared a land border...

[AlexSmith-grhp]

There is land border between Tasmania and Victoria. And it turns out it’s sealed.

[Eatherbreather]

Have been to the WA/SA/NT border markers. Can confirm there is two as shown in the video. I rode a bike out from Wingelina remote community and rode the bike around the markers so I could be in all three states in the same 10 seconds. It is the only time I have been into the Northern Territory 😊

[seanys]

I love the cul-de-sac where you can drive through WA, SA and NT all in one go.

[echorome]

One which really threw me was the existence of that weird tiny timezone on the Nullarbor at the WA SA border: Perth+45min. I never knew that timezone existed until I was there.

[catintheoven]

Also the Australian tectonic plate has moved a good few metres since the surveys were done so they were always chasing a moving target with meridians (not that they knew)

[SavageGreywolf]

"An academic result was not to be sought after with a high and fanciful degree of accuracy" is the most high-falutin' way I've ever heard "Eh, close enough for government work" expressed

[gardnep]

I understood that the 9 km? boundary of South Australia and Victoria has not been fixed and those people living in that small region face quite a few issues with jurisdiction. It was exceptionally bad during Covid when states had different restrictions.

[danielcarroll]

While not a border glitch, something that surprises a lot of people is that northernmost California is north of the south end of Canada.

[binaway]

Herd Island, which is part of Tasmania, is further west than any part of Western Australia. It's Island group is a declared National Marine Park
Melbourne is the most Southerly city in the world with a population over 1Million.

[bushranger]

As a Victorian, I knew about Boundary Islet, and the deviation on the Murray River, however I didn't know about the 127m difference in the WA/NT/SA border, like all Aussies I thought that one was as straight as it could be, and I didn't know that Norfolk Island voted as part of the ACT. I guess you're not too old to learn something new everyday.

[brucestorey]

Fascinating. I had heard once, while holidaying on the Murray R. near the town of Barmah, that there was a place nearby in which Victoria was extended to the northern bank of the Murray. Now I know why. One point re borders that bugged me (still does, actually) is how come Vic. / NSW border doesn't go on a level line to the coast where the Murray R. starts in the mountains

[eamonahern]

I'm not Australian but I always imagine Perth being further north than it is. I always thought it was closer to half way up the west coast. So it's no surprise to me that Sydney is further south than Perth (for the wrong reason, of sorts)

[ronDragon]

Really impressed by how close the Western border lines were, not bad for basically eyeing it😅

[theoriginalchefboyoboy]

I couple of years ago I was checking out the Four Corners region of the US on Google maps and was following the borders of the states away from that point. I found that the border of Utah has a "bend" in it for what ever reason - just a slight deviation by a few RCHs. Don't know why it is, but it's weird...

[Zestieee]

i love this, finally some new facts to tell my friends who will keep not listening to me because im boring and i talk about geography and linguistics all the time