Australia

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Official Name
Commonwealth of Australia
Population Full

25,466,000 (2020 World Factbook)

General Remarks
Australian Capital Territory includes Jervis Bay Territory; New South Wales State includes Lord Howe Island and Ball’s Pyramid; Northern Territory includes Ashmore and Cartier Islands; Queensland State includes, to north, Saibai, Boigu, Talbot islands and Bramble Cay—to the east, the Great Barrier Reef; Tasmania State includes the Hogan group islands in Bass Strait south of parallel 39° 12” S; Victoria State includes the remaining group islands north of the above parallel; Western Australia State includes assorted reefs up to 400 km from the mainland (except for Ashmore and Cartier islands). Other remote Australian territories: Coral Seas Islands Territory administered from Kingston, Norfolk Island including assorted islands east of the Great Barrier Reef and west of meridian 157° W. Geopolitical entities assigned ISO-3166 codes, but administered by Australia: Christmas Island (CX), Cocos (Keeling) Islands (CC), Norfolk Island (NF) and Heard and McDonald Islands (HM). Source: 2015 Statoids
Principal Languages
English
Literacy Rate
99% (Roser and Ortiz-Ospina 2018)
International Conventions
CDE (1966), CPPDCE (2009), ICCPR (1980), UNCRPD (2008), UNDRIP (2009)
General References
Black 1983, Hudson 1987, McConvell and Thieberger 2001, McGregor 1988, Oates and Oates 1970, Schmidt, A. 1990, Wurm 1972, Wurm 2007, Wurm and Hattori 1981
Deaf Population
16,000
Language Counts
The number of established languages listed for Australia is 401. Of these, 227 are living and 174 are extinct. Of the living languages, 216 are indigenous and 11 are non-indigenous. Furthermore, 7 are institutional, 17 are developing, 6 are vigorous, 39 are in trouble, and 158 are dying. Also listed are 90 unestablished languages.