this post was submitted on 17 Feb 2024
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106
Australia is bigger than some people overseas imagine. (aus.social)
submitted 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
30 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Australia is bigger than some people overseas imagine.

So here's a quick comparison of Australian states to their US counterparts.

Tasmania is Australia's smallest state, with a total area of 68,401 square kilometres.

That's bigger than West Virginia, Maryland, Ha​waii, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Connecticut, Delaware, or Rhode Island.

Australia's second smallest state is Victoria, at 227, 444km2.

It's larger than Minnesota, Utah, Idaho, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, Washington, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Missouri, Wisconsin, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, New York, North Carolina, Arkansas, Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, Ohio, Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Maine, Florida, or Pennsylvania.

Fun fact: Victoria is larger in area than Indiana and South Carolina combined.

Now on to the ones that might surprise you.

You know how Texans love talking up how big Texas is?

New South Wales is bigger than Texas.

And by quite a margin. NSW is 801, 150 sq km compared to 696,241 sq km for Texas.

South Australia is bigger than Texas, and Michigan. Combined.

SA is 984, 321 sq km.

Texas (696,241 km2) plus Michigan (250,493 sq km) is just 946, 734 sq km.

Queensland is bigger than Alaska.

Queensland is 1,729,742 sq km, compared to 1,717,854 sq km for Alaska.

That also means Queensland is bigger than Texas and California. Combined.

Texas (696,241 km2) plus California (423,968 km2) is 1,120,209 sq km.

You can add in Michigan too (250,493 sq km) and it's still only 1,370,702 sq km.

That's right kids. Texas, California, and Michigan combined are 359,040 sq km smaller than Queensland.

That leaves Western Australia. It's 2,527,013 square kilometres.

How big is that? Well, the combined area of Texas and Alaska is 2,414,095 sq km, so pretty bloody big.

Source: https://www.ga.gov.au/scientific-topics/national-location-information/dimensions/area-of-australia-states-and-territories

@australia #australia #texas #geography #usa #travel

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[–] [email protected] 43 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Wait you're telling me that some arbitrarily designed geographical regions are bigger than some others?

Fun fact: the canton of El Chaco in Ecuador is larger than the county of Rutland in the UK

[–] [email protected] 22 points 8 months ago (2 children)

@drolex I'm telling you some arbitrarily designated regions are far larger than most people imagine them to be.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 8 months ago

Put a much more simple and meaningful way rather than subdivisions: Australia is only about 5% smaller than the contiguous US ("lower 48").

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

"I thought it was bigger". Yeah maybe it's not only about size, maybe it's about how much fossil fuel is hidden underground

[–] [email protected] 23 points 8 months ago (2 children)

@ajsadauskas @australia When I worked in The Rocks in Sydney an American tourist asked what the “big birds” in the evening were, he nearly fainted when I told him they were bats…

Anyway we got chatting and he said we was going to drive up the east coast to Cairns. Great idea I said, give yourself a week or two to visit all the interesting stuff.

He blanched and said he expected to do it in three days…

I blame the Mercator projection…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercator_projection

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago

@pandanus @ajsadauskas @australia I misread and first thought they meant fly up drive around and while I to my shame haven't got to FNQ I thought, doing the reef one and and the rainforest the next would not do either justice.

Then I re-read and well, yikes you would not want to do that to yourself (or the other road users for that matter).

Folks do the same to NZ, long and thin is not small, for what it is worth. Our roads don't forgive that most sadly.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago (1 children)

@pandanus @ajsadauskas @australia my cousin is visiting for the first time. we have two weeks in australia. we're meeting in sydney and then flying to melbourne and it was harder than expected to get him to understand just how much time it would take to fit uluru into our plans (we aren't going).

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

I mean, Uluru is the definition of "middle of fucking nowhere"...

[–] [email protected] 16 points 8 months ago (3 children)

We would be happy to give you Texas if you are interested.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 8 months ago (2 children)

I live in Texas. If you gave this place to Australia, I'd find myself in a strange environment with no guns, no death penalty, rampant addictive gambling, beautifully rendered plastic currency, and women in possession of an accent that would enchant me by merely reciting the numbers in an old telephone book.

The only reason I'm not all in on this idea is that I fear the constant headaches from always being upside down.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 8 months ago

Dropbears, don't forget the dropbears

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago (1 children)

We have guns, just regulated guns

[–] [email protected] 8 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Look, if I can't just pick one up from the vending machine when I retrieve my child from daycare, it just isn't the same.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago

Why would you leave your child at daycare without their own gun? I'm calling CPS.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 8 months ago

Absolutely not, stay away from us with that thing

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

@CompostMaterial Would you be willing to swap it for northern Queensland?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

Alaska is bigger than everyone everywhere, even Alaskans, imagine

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago

@halferect @ajsadauskas yet simultaneously a lot smaller than it looks in Mercator

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago (1 children)

@ajsadauskas @australia

https://www.thetruesize.com/#?borders=1~!ODUxNjQzMw.NDcwODYzOQ*MzUyOTM5ODQ(Mjc5MTExNzE~!CONTIGUOUS_US*MTQ5NTEzMDU.ODUyOTE5NQ(MTc1)MQ~!IN*NTI2NDA1MQ.Nzg2MzQyMQ)MA~!CN*OTkyMTY5Nw.NzMxNDcwNQ(MjI1)Mg

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Lol if you drag the China country to the South Pole it glitches and then covers the rest of the world minus Antarctica. 😊

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago

Huh, suppose that explains china opening a new antartic research station

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

@ajsadauskas @australia unless you're from canada. :)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

@ajsadauskas @australia Texans like to think that Houston is a big city. Population is around 2-3 million. Maybe 7-8 million if you include the metro area. Which goes on forever.

Sydney is 5.3 million and Melbourne about 5.1 million.

Big? Yes. But not so big.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago (3 children)

@ajsadauskas @australia The United States 🇺🇸 is slightly larger than Australia 🇦🇺 which is 🤯! Flat maps hide how large Australia 🇦🇺 is, but a globe is enlightening.

👉🏾 https://www.mylifeelsewhere.com/country-size-comparison/australia/united-states

[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 months ago (1 children)

And to think it has a population smaller than California (20mil)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

26.5 mil thank you very much

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago (1 children)

If by slightly you mean nearly 20%, I believe that’s only because of Alaska, then it would be smaller. The real crazy huge one is modern day Russia which is easily double Australia and almost 80% larger than the United States.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 8 months ago (1 children)

@skydivekingair @darnell The mainland of Australia is 7,591,608 square kilometres.

Add Tasmania and various offshore territories, and that rises to 7,688,287 sq km.

The land area of the contiguous US (so excluding Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, etc.) Is 7,663,941.7 km.

Add them in, and you get 9,147,420 sq km.

So comparing like for like (mainland to the contiguous 48 states), Australia is slightly smaller.

The only way you get to "Australia is slightly larger" is if you include non-contiguous and island states for Australia (Tasmania), but not the US (Alaska and Hawaii).

But that is an apples-and-oranges comparison.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

The other fun one is that the continental US (AKA everything except Alaska) is just about the same size as Australia. Then when you consider that there's 49 states versus Australia's 7, you can see how the numbers come about.