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Melbourne is the capital and largest city of the state of Victoria, and the second largest city in Australia, with a population of 52,117 in the Central Business District and 3,488,750 in the metropolitan area (census 2001).

Australia is home to the Great Artesian Basin - an important source of water for people and cattle in the parched outback. This basin is the world's largest and deepest fresh water basin.

Sydney boasts a full roster of musical, theatrical and artistic activity throughout the year, from the formal - including the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, the Sydney Theatre Company, the Sydney Dance Company, and the Archibald Prize - to festivals, including the Sydney Festival, a celebration of free performances throughout January. Many internationally known Australian rock bands have had their conception in Sydney, from Midnight Oil to INXS.

Although Australia has scarcely more than two persons per square kilometer of total land area, this raw figure is highly misleading: most of the continent is desert or semi-desert and of no agricultural value. In consequence, Australia is one of the world's most urbanized countries: less than 15% of the population live in rural areas.

Writers who have achieved world recognition include Thomas Keneally, Les Murray, Colleen McCullough, Nevil Shute, Morris West, Jill Ker Conway, Booker Prize winners D.B.C. Pierre and Peter Carey and Nobel Prize winner Patrick White. In the popular music sphere Australian bands and musicians have had considerable international success. Some notable examples include the 1960s successes of The Easybeats and the folk-pop group The Seekers, through the heavy rock of AC/DC, the disco of the English-born Bee Gees, the slick pop of INXS and more recently Silverchair and Savage Garden. In the new millennium, garage rock bands Jet and The Vines have achieved popular success locally and in the United States and the United Kingdom, with the work of both featuring prominently in films and advertising.

Australia's neighbouring countries include New Zealand to the southeast and Indonesia, East Timor, and Papua New Guinea to the north. The shortest border distance is between the mainlands of Papua New Guinea and Australia at about 150 km; however, the nearest inhabited island, Boigu Island, is about 5km from Papua New Guinea. This has led to a complicated border arrangement allowing access for 'traditional' uses of the waterway across the border by Papua New Guinean people and Torres Strait Islanders.

Immigration has been a major factor in Australia's development since the beginning of European settlement in 1788. For generations, most settlers came from Britain and Ireland, and the people of Australia are still predominantly of British or Irish origin, with a culture and outlook similar to that of the United Kingdom and the United States.