Our Common Bond
States and territories of Australia: capitals, sizes and icons
Practise ten questions on the states and territories, then pick any of them in the tool below to see its capital, leader title and Senate seats.
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| Practice set of 10 questions, target 75% |
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Practice questions adapted by Radif Partners from Our Common Bond. Not the official test questions.
Questions adapted from Australian Citizenship: Our Common Bond, © Commonwealth of Australia, CC BY 4.0, by Radif Partners.
The Commonwealth of Australia is a federation of 6 states and 2 mainland territories, each with its own capital, and Canberra, in the Australian Capital Territory, is the national capital. The states are New South Wales (Sydney), Victoria (Melbourne), Queensland (Brisbane), Western Australia (Perth), South Australia (Adelaide) and Tasmania (Hobart); the territories are the Australian Capital Territory (Canberra) and the Northern Territory (Darwin). Our Common Bond adds a few ranking facts that are easy to test: New South Wales was the first British colony and Sydney is the largest city, Western Australia is the largest state, Queensland the second largest, Victoria the smallest mainland state and Tasmania the smallest state of all, across Bass Strait. Part 3 explains that states have rights recognised by the Constitution while territories do not, and that each state elects 12 senators against 2 for each territory. Our bank has 12 questions on this topic.
One state or territory at a glance
Capital city
Sydney
| Type | State (rights recognised by the Constitution) |
| Leader of its government | Premier |
| Senators | 12 of 76 |
| Remember | first British colony; Sydney is the largest city |
| Icons named in the booklet | Sydney Harbour Bridge, Opera House |
Questions, dates and fees by Radif Partners · Editorial policy · How questions and dates are built
All eight in one table
| State or territory | Abbreviation | Capital | Remember it by |
|---|---|---|---|
| New South Wales | NSW | Sydney | first British colony; largest city; Harbour Bridge and Opera House |
| Victoria | Vic. | Melbourne | smallest mainland state; gold-rush buildings; MCG, 12 Apostles |
| Queensland | Qld | Brisbane | second largest; Great Barrier Reef; Torres Strait Islands to the north |
| Western Australia | WA | Perth | largest state; desert east, farms and wine south-west; mining |
| South Australia | SA | Adelaide | rugged coast, wine regions; Barossa Valley, Flinders Ranges |
| Tasmania | Tas. | Hobart | smallest state; Bass Strait; Cradle Mountain, Port Arthur |
| Australian Capital Territory | ACT | Canberra | national capital; Parliament House, High Court |
| Northern Territory | NT | Darwin | tropical north, red desert south; Uluru, Kata Tjuta |
The ranking facts
Questions on this topic often hinge on a superlative, and the booklet supplies exactly five of them. Learn them as a group so they cannot drift apart:
- Largest state: Western Australia.
- Second largest: Queensland.
- Smallest mainland state: Victoria.
- Smallest state: Tasmania, the island state.
- Largest city: Sydney (not Canberra, which is the capital).
Landmarks by state
The booklet calls certain places icons, meaning well-known images. They make natural questions because they test whether you can place a famous name on the map. Picture the country clockwise from the north. The Northern Territory has Uluru, Kata Tjuta and Kings Canyon. Queensland has the Great Barrier Reef along its east coast and tropical rainforests. New South Wales has the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Opera House. Victoria has the Melbourne Cricket Ground, the 12 Apostles and the Royal Exhibition Building. Tasmania has Cradle Mountain, Port Arthur and the Bay of Fires. South Australia has the Barossa Valley and the Flinders Ranges. Western Australia completes the loop with the Ningaloo Coast, Margaret River and the Kimberley.
How states and territories are governed
This topic continues in Part 3. Each state has its own parliament and constitution, a Premier at the head of its government and a Governor who represents the King. Territories are led by a Chief Minister, and in the Northern Territory an Administrator appointed by the Governor-General plays a role similar to a Governor. The states and the Northern Territory are divided into local government areas run by councils; in the ACT, the territory government also handles local services. The three levels of government page lists who provides what, and the Parliament page explains why small and large states have the same number of senators.
Why capitals come up so often
Capitals are the simplest facts in the booklet to turn into a question, so expect them. Two traps recur. The first is Canberra: it is the national capital and the home of Parliament House and the High Court, but it is neither the largest city nor a state capital, because it sits in a territory. The second is Darwin, sometimes guessed as the capital of Queensland or Western Australia because of its tropical setting; it belongs to the Northern Territory. A gentler trap is Hobart against Adelaide: both are smaller capitals, one on the island state and one on the southern coast of the mainland. Saying the eight pairs aloud, place first and capital second, fixes them within a few days.
Revising with a sketch
Draw the outline of Australia, divide it roughly into the eight regions and write each capital and one icon. Do it from memory twice. Then use the tool below to check each one: it shows the capital, whether the place is a state or a territory, the title of its leader and its Senate seats. When the sketch comes out right without help, the practice set above should be easy. The map and the descriptions are on pages 10 and 11 of the testable section.