OUTBACK AUSTRALIA

Australia is the world's smallest continent and sixth-largest country with an area of 7 682 300 sq. km. It has relatively speaking more desert land than any other continent and, with about 20 million inhabitants, a low population density. Australia's isolation accounts for its unique varieties of vegetation and animal life and its distinct Aboriginal culture. Although a highly developed country, vast areas of the interior, known as the Outback, remain all but uninhabited. The Outback has changed little in centuries and could therefore be called the Real Australia.

In many parts of Australia the Paleolithic culture of the Aborigines did not survive European settlement of the early 1800s. Living from fishing, hunting, and gathering, the Aborigines developed kinship systems and rich and complex mythologies. There were about 500 tribes and as many languages among the 300 000 Aborigines living in Australia when the Europeans arrived. Today their numbers have increased again and their society is in transition, yet Aboriginal culture lives on, adapting to the modern world.

In Outback Australia both Aboriginal culture and the western pioneer culture live side by side in a vast and varied land of great contrast, harsh and beautiful, arid one part of the year, flooded the other, sometimes blazing hot, while frost may occur in the Centre as well. A land of deserts and waterfalls, balmy tropical nights and cyclones. It's unique. We love it.