Australia is significantly larger than Western Europe, even when Scandinavia is excluded, (otherwise it doesn’t fit inside the map). Australia’s total land area is about 7.7 million square kilometres, making it the sixth-largest country in the world. In contrast, if you define Western Europe as including countries like the United Kingdom, Ireland, France, Germany, the Benelux nations (Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg), Switzerland, Austria, Spain and Portugal, but excluding the Scandinavian countries of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark, the combined land area is roughly 3 to 3.5 million square kilometres.
That means Australia is more than twice the size of this version of Western Europe. You could fit all those countries inside Australia and still have millions of square kilometres left over. Yet while Australia covers more land, it has far fewer people. Australia’s population is about 26 million, while Western Europe (even without Scandinavia) has well over 200 million inhabitants. This results in stark differences in population density and land use.
