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Until the late 1960s, many have argued that Australian popular music was largely indistinguishable from imported music: British to begin with, then gradually more and more American in the post-war years. The sudden arrival of the 1960s underground movement into the mainstream in the early 1970s changed Australian music permanently: Skyhooks were far from the first people to write songs in Australia, by Australians, about Australia, but they were the first ones ever to make money doing it. The two best-selling albums ever made (at that time) put Australian music on the map. Within a few years, the novelty had worn off and it became commonplace to hear distinctively Australian lyrics and sometimes sounds side-by-side with the imitators and the imports.

The most popular spectator sport in Perth is Australian Rules football. Two teams in the Australian Football League (AFL) are based in Perth: the West Coast Eagles and the Fremantle Football Club (or "The Dockers").

The Australian Capital Territory was created at the chosen site of the capital city Canberra in an area called the Molongo River Valley. Canberra was founded as a compromise between the two largest cities, Melbourne and Sydney. The name 'Canberra' is derived from the indigenous Ngunnawal language, which is loosely translated into English as "meeting place".

Alice Springs is best known outside the region as the setting of the Nevil Shute novel A Town Like Alice, and because of its proximity to Uluru, formerly known as Ayers Rock, the monolithic hill that is one of Australia's best-known natural landmarks as well as an important focus of Aboriginal culture and beliefs.

Today, many tribal Aborigines lead a settled traditional life in remote areas of northern, central, and western Australia. In the south, where most Aborigines are of mixed descent, most live in the cities.

Almost in the exact center of the continent, Alice Springs is some 700 kilometres from the nearest ocean and 1500 kilometres from the nearest major cities: Darwin and Adelaide. Alice Springs is now the midpoint of Adelaide-Darwin Railway.

The Australian aborigines , estimated to number as many as 350,000 at the time of the Europeans' arrival, was numbered at 386,049 (including Torres Strait Islanders, who are of Papuan descent) in 1996. Although still more rural than the general population, the aboriginal population has become more urbanized, with some two thirds living in cities. New South Wales and Queensland account for just over half of the Australian aboriginal population. In Tasmania the aboriginal population was virtually wiped out in the 19th century.

Australia's population has more than doubled since the end of World War II, spurred by an ambitious postwar immigration program. In the 19th century, Australia enacted strong measures to prevent immigration by nonwhites. After World War II, immigration from Greece, Turkey, Italy, and other countries increased Australia's cultural diversity. In 1973, Australia officially ended discriminatory immigration policies, and substantial Asian immigration followed. By 1988 about 40% of immigration to Australia was from Asia, and by 1997 Asians constituted about 5% of the population. The indigenous population, the Australian Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders, make up 2.2% of the population, according to the 2001 Census. In 2001, the political campaign was dominated by issues of immigration and national security and there still remains substantial anxiety among Australians concerning immigration.

Most of the Australian population descends from 19th and 20th century immigrants, most from the UK and Ireland to begin with, but from other sources in later years. Although the Australian colonies were founded as a penal colonies (except for South Australia and Western Australia - with the latter later receiving convicts), the transportation of British convicts to Australian colonies was gradually phased out between 1840 and 1868. During the "gold rush" of the late 19th century, the convicts and their descendants were rapidly overshadowed by hundreds of thousands of free settlers from many different countries: for example, in the 1850s about two per cent of the combined populations of Britain and Ireland emigrated to New South Wales and Victoria.

Australia has a highly concentrated ownership of media companies. Newspapers are dominated by two companies, News Corporation and John Fairfax Holdings. News Corporation publishes the only daily national newspaper, The Australian, as well as a daily newspaper in every capital city except Perth. Its holdings include The Daily Telegraph (Sydney), Herald Sun (Melbourne), The Courier-Mail (Brisbane) and The Advertiser (Adelaide).

By far the largest part of Australia is desert or semi-arid — 40% of the land mass is covered by sand dunes. Only the south-east and south-west corners have a temperate climate and moderately fertile soil. The northern part of the country has a tropical climate: part is tropical rainforests, part grasslands, and part desert. The Great Barrier Reef, the world's largest coral reef, lies a short distance off the north-east coast and extends for over 1,200 kilometres. Uluru (until 1986 known as Ayers Rock), is the second largest monolith in the world and is located in central Australia (the largest being Mount Augustus in Western Australia). The largest city in the world by area (not by population) is Mount Isa in northern Queensland.

Although Australia has scarcely more than two persons per square kilometer of total land area, this raw figure is highly misleading: most of the continent is desert or semi-desert and of no agricultural value. In consequence, Australia is one of the world's most urbanized countries: less than 15% of the population live in rural areas.

Australia has about 800 species of bird, ranging from the tiny 8 cm Weebill to the huge, flightless Emu.

Despite the best intentions of government health schemes and cultural marketing initiatives, the traditional Australian palate is amply serviced by an extensive takeaway food industry.

Australian television channels include two government owned national networks, three major commercial capital city networks, several regional commercial networks and independent stations that are generally affiliates of the major networks, and a handful of community stations.