Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and numerous smaller islands. [N 6] It has a total area of 7,688,287 km2 (2,968,464 sq mi), making it the sixth-largest country in the world and the largest in Oceania. Australia is the world's flattest and driest inhabited continent. It is a megadiverse ...
Australia is situated entirely in the southern hemisphere, between the Indian and the Pacific ocean, south of Maritime Southeast Asia and north of the Antarctic. With an area of 7,617,930 km², Australia is almost (95%) as large as the continental USA (excluding Alaska).