Australian Population Distribution

The majority of Australia's population is distributed along the coastline. The current population of around 20 million is concentrated mainly in the large coastal cities of Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide.

Brisbane and Sydney are located on the south-eastern coast consecutively. From the bottom right to the bottom left of the continent, located on the south-eastern to south-western coasts are Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth, respectively.

These concentrated cities then branch out into urban areas, and then towns of varying population density. There are towns scattered closer inland and further into the centre of Aust14ralia, there are scarcely situated remote towns with small numbers of inhabitants.

The demographics of Australia's population are a result of environmental, economic, cultural, and political factors. However it appears the history involved are the most influential in governing these factors.

Apart from the aborigines, it was through British settlement which initialized the demography of Australia. After seeing the potential of the land for agriculture and settlement the British first landed in Sydney Cove. When the British first landed they had to settle around the coast as it took them great effort to clear the land. Had it not been necessary for the British to setup a penal colony because of the overcrowding in the prisons and the British had been unaware of the fertile land along the eastern, south-eastern coasts and Tasmania, they would not necessarily have made the decision to attempt to colonise Australia.

Perhaps in years to come it may have been a different country or race of people settling Australia and they may have colonized different areas or inhabited different terrain. For example the aborigines inhabiting the northern part of the country, which has a tropical climate and vegetation consisting of rainforest, woodland, grassland and desert.

The British settlement of Australia greatly affected the general layout of the Australian population. This was also a result of environmental and cultural factors.

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