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Commonwealth of Australia Flags

Flag Colors and Description

The Australian flag is blue with the flag of the UK in the upper hoist-side quadrant and a large seven-pointed star in the lower hoist-side quadrant known as the Commonwealth or Federation Star. The star represents the federation of the colonies of Australia in 1901 and depicts one point for each of the six original states and one representing all of Australia's internal and external territories. On the fly half is a representation of the Southern Cross constellation in white with one small five-pointed star and four larger, seven-pointed stars.

People

Population: 20,264,082 (July 2006 estimate)

Population Growth Rate: 0.85% (2006 estimate)

Spoken Languages: English 79.1%, Chinese 2.1%, Italian 1.9%, other 11.1%, unspecified 5.8% (2001 Census)

Government

Government Type: federal parliamentary democracy

Capital: Canberra

Economics

GDP (Gross Domestic Product): $635.5 billion (2005 estimate)

GDP per capita: $31,600 (2005 estimate)