Dimensions
Last updated:27 June 2014
![Aerial panorama of Sorrento Back Beach and coastline. Mornington Peninsula, Melbourne, Australia](https://www.ga.gov.au/__data/assets/image/0008/130994/varieties/768w.jpg)
Australia's oceans and seas include those off the mainland and its offshore territories in the Pacific, Southern and Indian Oceans as well as the Timor, Tasman and Coral Seas.
![Road train rushing past car parked on the side of the Nullarbor Plain highway](https://www.ga.gov.au/__data/assets/image/0009/130995/varieties/768w.jpg)
The Australian continent is almost as long as it is wide.
![Red Banks Scenic Australian Outback rural Landscape](https://www.ga.gov.au/__data/assets/image/0007/130993/varieties/768w.jpg)
Land areas of States and Territories.
![Sydney from above at night](https://www.ga.gov.au/__data/assets/image/0006/130992/varieties/768w.jpg)
Australia is the planet's sixth largest country after Russia, Canada, China, the USA, and Brazil.
![man writing in notebook on car bonnet](https://www.ga.gov.au/__data/assets/image/0005/130991/varieties/768w.jpg)
Officially, there is no centre of Australia, but over time and with ingenuity, several methods for calculating the centre of the mainland have been developed.
![Road in National Arboretum Canberra, ACT](https://www.ga.gov.au/__data/assets/image/0004/130990/varieties/768w.jpg)
The positions of the borders are mostly familiar. The more unusual being the one border which is entirely surrounded by a state.
![The result of a drought on a water hole](https://www.ga.gov.au/__data/assets/image/0003/130989/varieties/768w.jpg)
Australia is a land of extremes with temperatures ranging from highs of 40°C in the central desert regions to below freezing in the higher regions of the country's southeast.
![View of Big Ben and Heard Island from a boat](https://www.ga.gov.au/__data/assets/image/0019/12583/varieties/768w.jpg)
Australia's territory ranges far beyond its continental borders.