ABSTRACT
Australia is a federation with six states, two territories (collectively here called ‘the states’), and a federal (‘Commonwealth’) government based in the national capital, Canberra. With 22.5 million people (2011 census), it is one of the world’s least densely populated, though heavily urbanised, countries. In three of the states, more than 70 per cent of the population lives in the capital city while about two thirds of New South Wales lives in the capital. Most of the population lives on the eastern seaboard, with a pocket around Perth in the southwest of the continent.
