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, Hawaii, 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.
@msdropbear42 @ajsadauskas I love a lot of US geography, but it is nearly 10 years since I have visited their amazing national parks.
The people, politics, parochialism, proselytising, patriotism, parks (car), and packing (of firearms) probably means that I won’t visit any time soon.
Their society needs a lot more repair than ours before I will feel comfortable visiting again.
@BernardSheppard @msdropbear42 @ajsadauskas Much of US geography and politics is derived from our history of colonialism (colonized in 1492-1620-1664-1776 ; colonizer in 1848-1898) and slavery and Jim Crow (essentially all years). And derivative of that, our other peculiar institution, is our federalism where the same territory is controlled by two (sometimes three) governments.
@EineKleine
In many ways, our history is sadly similar, just without the same overt level of slavery (but blackbirding was slavery in all but name), with the colonisation compressed into a shorter time frame and without one of the religious persecution foundations of the colony that does seem to have been preserved in your culture to this day.
P. S. When I see your handle, mentally I reply Nachtmusik. It does show how much conditioning plays in our responses.
P. P. S. We too have three levels of government, and associated taxes. Luckily, however, we have, so far, escaped from the worst excesses of your version of that that I have seen which includes things like a stadium tax applied to car rentals (Houston, I think) which really was just a local government sponsored kickback for the stadium developer paid for by out of town visitors.
@msdropbear42 @ajsadauskas