Why is Australia less populated than most continents?

Question

This link shows distributions. Is it difficult to live in Australia? Why? Deadly kangaroos?

Answer 1

Good to know! I'm packin my bags right now!

Answer 2

Wow. I think Kay T is an expert. I'll go with what she says. That list of dangerous creatures makes me never wanna visit.

Answer 3

They don't let the Riff-Raff in!

Good for them, too! xo

EDIT:

Holy E? Are you for real?

Answer 4

Cuz them crazy b******s **** with wild animals. Look at Steve Irwin.

Answer 5

Much of the interior is desert and scrub, without very good living conditions.  The population is mostly on the coasts, primarily the southeastern part.  I didn't find anything saying for sure why the population is so low, but I would surmise that it is largely due to difficult living conditions over most of the continent.

Also, you mentioned deadly kangaroos.  Australia actually does have many of the world's deadliest creatures, although kangaroos aren't considered among them.

"Australia definitely has its fair share of some of the world's most painful and poisonous creatures. We have deadly spiders, and of the top ten most deadliest snakes of the world, Australia has six on the list. Did you know even our humble platypus produces one of the most excruciating venoms known?

Below we have listed Australia's top ten dangerous creatures, of what we believe to be Australia's top ten dangerous animals.

1. The Box Jellyfish

2. Irukandji (A Jellyfish)

3. Salt Water Crocodile

4. Blue Ring Octopus

5. Stone Fish

6. Red Back Spider

7. Brown Snake

8. Tiger Snake

9. Great White Shark

10. Funnel Web Spider

"Outback is a term that describes rural and remote areas in Australia, the parts where not many people live. The different colours in my Outback map show population density, and as you can see, most of Australia is rather empty...

(The map is actually a bit rough, because many of those areas showing < 5 people per km2 are inhabited by less than one person per km2.)

Most Australians live near one of the major Australian cities on the coast. The most densely populated part of Australia is the south-east. In your mind draw a line from Adelaide to Brisbane. Below and to the right of that line (roughly) is where most Australians live. You can see the darker areas in the map. Above and to the left is the Outback...

Now follow the east coast going north all the way to Cairns. The whole coast is fairly populated as well, but it is only a very narrow strip. Go inland just a few hundred kilometres, and you'll be in the Australian Outback for sure.

There is one more population centre on the west coast, the area around and south of Perth, that whole bulge in the bottom corner there, and a narrow strip along the coast going north, where you will find a few smaller towns.

And that's it. The rest of Australia is more or less empty! Everything else on the map is the Australian Outback. Even the area around Darwin in the north. Darwin is a city, but it's small and isolated. Step outside the city and you find yourself in the Outback. And places like Katherine or Alice Springs are but mere specks in the middle of nowhere... Definitely Outback.

Now, to give you an idea of the size of it all: Australia is about the same size as the US minus Alaska. Very roughly 4000 km top to bottom or west to east coast."

Answer 6

Jared Diamond in 'Collapse' argues that the continent is already over populated, especially given global warming and dessication. He thinks 8 million is the most the continent can support sustainably. It is very dry and very empty for that reason.

Answer 7

90% of Australians live in cities and urban areas on the coast.  The interior consists of the Outback and the Bush, semi-arid rugged areas that are inhospitable to human beings.  These areas have dingos, poisonous snakes, and even kangaroos.

Canadiens do not live in northern Canada, Africans do not live in the Sahara, and South Americans do not live in parts of the Amazon Basin because it sucks to live in these places.

Answer 8

Dingos keep eating their babies!

Answer 9

A combination of WW1 and 2 (they absorbed more than their fair share of death in those), unforgiving climate ( a lot of poisonous critters and not much livable land), being an island ( Europeans came late and not in droves like the America's), and very strict immigration (one of the strictest immigration policies in the world). The biggest factor is the two world wars though. To this day they have a large disproportion of women to men because of how many men died in the world wars. there literally wasn't enough men to have a population rise like everywhere else let alone have something like the baby boom after the wars like we did. The british used Australian soldiers as bullet sponges on more than a couple occasions (most notably Gallipoli)

Answer 10

It won't last...enjoy the space while you've got it, Aussies....Corporate America is salivating to get their greedy claws in to your pristine land and water.