Perth

(Special thanks to @/reliquiaen for helping with this form)

Name: Australia
Year founded: The First Fleet arrived from England on January 26 1788 but it was federated in 1901 on the 1st of January and became the Commonwealth of Australia. (You get a free fun fact in here bc it's relevant: there has been quite a division among Australians the last few years - like maybe going back seven years? more? - bc we celebrate Australia Day on the 26 Jan, but the First Peoples of Australia feel that's in poor taste (understandably, they refer to it as Invasion Day, also understandably) and want it to be moved to the 1 Jan but nobody else wants that bc then it's the same day as New Years and we lose a holiday. :T)

Number of states/subdivisions Six states and three territories (which are more or less the same as states tbh)
Queensland (QLD)
New South Wales (NSW)
Victoria (VIC)
Tasmania (TAS)
South Australia (SA)
West Australia (WA)
Northern Territory (NT)
Australian Capital Territory (ACT)
Jervis Bay Territory (JBT) - this one's not well known, it exists only so the ACT has access to the ocean bc it's landlocked. lol

National bird: Emu! (angry bird, we lost a war to the emus u.u)
National animal: Red kangaroo (it's the largest and most recognisable, when you think of a kangaroo, you're thinking of this one)
National plant: Golden Wattle (of all our funky weird plants and they picked this one smh)

Highest producer of ‘product’
I don't know a lot of the facts in this area, but i do know that Australia is a huge exporter of iron, coal, natural gases, some valuable minerals (gold, opal) and i'm not sure if we still are, but historically we produced a LOT of wool products.

Landmarks:
Sydney Harbour Bridge (Sydney NSW; man-made)
Sydney Opera House (Sydney NSW; man-made)
Uluru (NT; natural) - Not as well known, but if you visit Uluru, Kata Tjuta is right there and it's just as spectacular, well worth a visit
Great Barrier Reef (QLD; natural)
Karlu Karlu (NT; natural) - also called Devils Marbles, they are great big red rocks and it's very cool
12 Apostles (VIC; natural) - I think there's only 8 left now bc of erosion, better visit before they're all gone!
Wilpena Pound (SA; natural) - absolutely breathtaking, hiker dream location tbh
And let's not forget our collection of largest random things! We have a Big Merino, Big Prawn, Big Pineapple, Big Banana, Big Mango, Big Golden Guitar. Go on a roadtrip and find them all it's a lot of fun (I have done this).

Wars and alliances:
How much time you got? Australians fought in both WWI and WWII and honestly, sad times all round.

As a nation, we'd just been federated when WWI happened and everyone thought it was a great idea to join up and go see the world lol. Being part of the Commonwealth, we fought with the English. The most widely remembered battle for Australia in WWI was the fight at Gallipoli where the English made a mistake and deposited our soldiers off at the wrong point on the coastline. The Aussie soldiers proceeded to get absolutely wrecked for ages before they had the chance to escape. There are a lot of real like... Aussie legends about Gallipoli, like John Simpson and his donkey. The Australian War Memorial is also a great place to look if you want more information about literally anything. April 25th is ANZAC Day where we remember fallen soldiers, it's a big thing. We have a biscuit named for it and everything.

In WWII we fought with the British again, but this time there were a lot more shenanigans with the Americans too. One of my favourite stories from WWII was the Battle of Brisbane. A good read, if you have time. One of Australia's capital cities was also bombed in WWII, Darwin. When I studied Australian history a few years ago, one of my professors showed us an interview with some people who lived so far out in the middle of nowhere that they still believed the war to be going on like a decade or two after it ended. Alas, idk where to find that bc it was smth he just uploaded to the university servers, sorry. :T

Not a war, but worth mentioning: the Port Arthur (TAS) massacre of 28–29 April 1996. 35 people were killed and like two dozen more were injured. Immediately afterwards, the Australian government instated gun laws. There have been no shootings since.

Fun facts: I mean, there are a disproportionate number of animals in Australia that can (and will) kill you if you look at them funny. What is it? We have like ??? 4 out of the top 10 most dangerous spiders and 7 of the top 10 most venomous snakes? Is that right? I can't look up spiders so someone else fact check me on that.

I was not joking before. We literally did lose a war against birds. Big angry birds, sure.

We are the proud home of the world's most graceful and regal bird: the bin chicken.

We are exactly as laid back as we like to tell people. I'm now living in London and it's glaringly obvious how different the cultures are in terms of language and what's socially acceptable. There are things I can't say here that are so okay in Aus that we routinely say them at work, in classrooms, etc. It's crazy.

We have Tim Tams and Lamingtons, what else could we possibly need.

We have the Today Show, a morning news program so memeable it's left the country.

Vegemite.