What is the smallest continent?
Australia is the smallest continent, covering about 7.7 million square kilometers. When grouped with nearby Pacific islands, the region is often called Oceania.
The Australian continent includes mainland Australia, Tasmania and New Guinea, which sit on the same continental shelf. Australia is the only country that covers an entire continent, which is why it is sometimes called the island continent.
Even as the smallest continent, Australia is huge: it is about the same size as the 48 mainland US states. It is also the flattest and, apart from Antarctica, the driest inhabited continent. Much of its interior, called the Outback, is desert or dry grassland.
A continent of unique wildlife
Australia separated from other landmasses tens of millions of years ago, so its animals evolved in isolation. Kangaroos, koalas, wombats and platypuses live naturally nowhere else. Europe is the second-smallest continent, at about 10 million square kilometers.
Did You Know?
Australia's Great Barrier Reef, off the coast of Queensland, is the largest coral reef system on Earth and stretches for more than 2,300 kilometers.