Up to Continuous Measurements.
The correct answer is .... it depends!
It depends on which source you read, apparently.
| Source | Length |
|---|---|
| Year Book of Australia (1978) | 36 735 km |
| Australian Encyclopedia | 19 658 km |
| Australian Handbook | 19 320 km |
So who is correct? The answer is: all of them! Each source used a ruler with different sized increments on it. If you measure the coastline with a ruler that is just 1 mm long, you would get a length of 132 000 km!
The article on the next page is taken from The Australian Geographer, 1979 and discusses this problem in a little more detail.
Measuring Australia's Coastline.
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