sh are endemic. Australia has the greatest number of reptiles of any country, with 755 species.
Australian forests are mostly made up of evergreen species, particularly eucalyptus trees in the less arid regions, wattles replace them in drier regions and deserts as the most dominant species. Among well-known Australian animals are the monotremes (the platypus and echidna); a host of marsupials, including the kangaroo, koala, and wombat, and birds such as theemu and the kookaburra. Australia is home to many dangerous animals including some of the most venomous snakes in the world. Many animal and plant species became extinct soon after first human settlement, including the Australian megafauna. Any of Australia s ecoregions, and the species within those regions, are threatened by human activities and introduced animal, fungal and plant species. The federal Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1 999 is the legal framework for the protection of threatened species. Numerous protected areas have been created under the National Strategy for the Conservation of Australia s Biological Diversity to protect and preserve unique ecosystems; 65 wetlands are listed under the Ramsar Convention, and 16 natural World Heritage Sites have been established. Australia was ranked 51st of 163 countries in the world on the 2010 Environmental Performance Index.
. Demographics
For almost two centuries the majority of settlers, and later immigrants, came from the British Isles. As a result the people of Australia are primarily of British and/or Irish ethnic origin. The 2011 Census asked respondents to provide a maximum of two ancestries with which they most closely identify. The most commonly nominated ancestry was English (36.1%), followed by Australian (35.4%), Irish (10.4%), Scottish (8.9%), Italian (4.6%), German (4.5%), Chinese (4.3%), Indian (2.0%), Greek (1.9%), and Dutch (1.7%). Because Australia s census doesn t ask for racial background, it is unclear how many Australians are descendants of Europeans. Estimates vary from 85% - 92%. Asian Australians make up 12% of the population.
Australia s population has quadrupled since the end of World War I. Nevertheless, its population density, 2.8 inhabitants per square kilometer, remains among the lowest in the world. Much of the population increase came from immigration. Following World War II and through to 2000, almost 5.9 million of the total population settled in the country as new immigrants, meaning that nearly two out of every seven Australians were born in another country. Most immigrants are skilled, but the immigration quota includes categories for family members and refugees. By +2050, Australia s population is currently projected to reach around 42 millionral population of Australia in 2012 was 2,420,731 (10.66% of the total population). The Indigenous population-Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders-was counted at 548,370 (2.5% of the total population) in +2011, a significant increase from 115,953 in the 1 976 census. The increase is partly due to many people with Indigenous heritage previously having been overlooked by the census due to undercount and cases where their Indigenous status had not been recorded on the form.Australians experience higher than average rates of imprisonment and unemployment, lower levels of education , and life expectancies for males and females that are 11-17 years lower than those of non-indigenous Australians. Some remote Indigenous communities have been described as having «failed state» - like conditionsmon with many other developed countries, Australia is experiencing a demographic shift towards an older population, with more retirees and fewer people of working age. In +2004, the average age of the civilian population was 38.8 years. A large number of Australians (759,849 for the period 2002-03; 1 million or 5% of the total population in 2005) live outside their home country.
6 . Language
Although Australia has no official language, English has always been entrenched as the de facto national language. Australian English is a major variety of the language with a distinctive accent and lexicon, and differs slightly from other varieties of English in grammar and spelling. General Australian serves as the standard dialect. According to the +2011 census, English is the only language spoken in the home for close to 81% of the population. The next most common languages ??spoken at home are Mandarin (1.7%), Italian (1.5%), Arabic (1.4%), Cantonese (1.3%), Greek (1.3%), and Vietnamese (1.2%); a considerable proportion of first - and second-generation migrants are bilingual. A 2010-2011 study by the Australia Early Development Index found the most common langu...
