How many states and territories does Australia have?

Australia has 6 states — New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, Western Australia, South Australia, and Tasmania — plus 2 mainland territories, the Australian Capital Territory and the Northern Territory.

What is the abbreviation for New South Wales?

New South Wales is abbreviated NSW. In full ISO 3166-2 form it is AU-NSW. Its capital is Sydney, Australia's most populous city.

Which is the largest state by area?

Western Australia (WA) is by far the largest, covering roughly 2.5 million square kilometres — about a third of the continent. Its capital is Perth.

What is Australia's capital?

The national capital is Canberra, located within the Australian Capital Territory (ACT). It is neither Sydney nor Melbourne, a common misconception.

Are the Australian Capital Territory and Northern Territory states?

No, they are territories. They have self-government but derive their powers from the federal Parliament rather than from the constitution as the six states do.

Australian State & Territory Reference

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Australia’s 8 jurisdictions

Australia is a federation of 6 states and 2 self-governing mainland territories. This reference lists all 8 with the standard abbreviation (also the ISO 3166-2 suffix, as in AU-NSW), the capital city, and the approximate land area. It is handy for address forms, dropdowns, data validation, or trivia.

How it works

The dataset is a curated offline table. Typing in the search box filters every entry whose abbreviation, name, or capital matches your text — so NSW finds New South Wales, Perth finds Western Australia by its capital, and terr surfaces the two territories. Land areas are rounded figures from standard public references, in square kilometres.

Notes and example

Western Australia (WA) is enormous — about 2.5 million km², roughly a third of the continent — while the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) is tiny by comparison, just over 2,000 km². The ACT exists specifically to house the national capital, Canberra, which is neither Sydney nor Melbourne despite a persistent misconception. The two territories are self-governing but, unlike the six states, hold powers delegated by the federal Parliament rather than entrenched in the constitution.