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Quote from: Jim on January 01, 2025, 07:42:39 pm

Quote from: St Paul Steam on December 31, 2024, 10:27:43 pm

"More than two-thirds of the country receives less than 500 mm of annual rain, making it an arid region. The Outback, located in the middle of the continent, is especially affected by this dry climate, making it inhospitable for human habitation." This may be why. 😊

Yes a little bit....but there are people out there. Massive cattle stations (a few of the boarders at my school had 1,000,000 plus acre stations) and there's towns dotted around.
Some parts aren't much different from places like Arizona etc....just people want to live near the coast mostly or at least where its green

Oh, come on now Jim and fess up.

The real reason Australia is so thinly populated is that Great Britian just didn't have any more convicts than that to send!?!?    ;c)

As I see it, getting kicked out of England (or most any of Europe for that matter) and sent to Australia is about the best trade any sane person could ever hope for. I would have defaulted on my taxes in a heartbeat ..... just so I'd get sent there!!!

We didn't have a 'War of Independence' like you fella's did, but Mother England is long gone!

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THE LONELIEST TOWN IN AUSTRALIA

The tiny outpost has a population of ZERO after pub owner, 88, dies – and he hadn't sold a drop in five years.
With little more than a derelict hotel, broken petrol pump and a vandalised phone box to its name, the abandoned town of Betoota stands alone in the middle of a barren desert plain.
It was once a busy meeting place for farmers and drovers moving their cattle through customs and onto the markets of South Australia.
But the deserted outpost, which lies 170km east of the nearest populated area, Birdsville, in Queensland, is now officially the smallest ghost town in the country.
And with an official population of zero, the town - which sees temperatures soar into the 50s - is also the tiniest by resident and building count in the world, according to the Herald Sun.
For several decades it was home to just one resident - Polish-born Simon Remienko.
He ran the 12-year-old Betoota Hotel, the only building in town, for 44 years before shutting up shop in 1997.
But he continued to live alone in the town until he passed away in 2004 at the age of 88.
Speaking in 2002, he told The Age: 'I own the place - if you own something and it makes you happy, there is no reason to leave it.
'There is always something for me to do here. If I don't look after myself, nobody else will.'
He stocked a full bar in the years leading up to his death, despite not having sold a drop in five years.
Betoota's history can be traced back to to the late 1880s when it was used as a customs post and Cobb & Co change station.
Hundreds of workers were attracted to the area after the building of a Rabbit Proof Fence in 1895, meaning the construction of a police station and a court was necessary.
But when changes were introduced to the customs services in 1901, population numbers began to dwindle.
In 1928, an inspection of the town revealed that in the past five years no one had been taken into custody and so the courthouse and police station closed their doors.
The town started to fall rapidly into a state of neglect and disrepair.
But Mr Remienko breathed new energy into the town when he purchased the hotel for £3,500 in 1953.
Now the ghost town only comes alive on the last weekend in August each year for The Betoota Races.

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