FACTBOX: Key facts about Australia and its election

(Reuters) - Key facts about Australia, which will hold national elections on November 24.

POLITICS/CONSTITUTION

- Australia is the world's sixth oldest democracy. It gained independence from Britain on January 1, 1901 when six former British colonies became a federation.

- Australia has a Westminster style of government. Parliament has two chambers, the lower chamber House of Representatives and the upper house Senate. The party with the majority in the lower house forms a government.

- The prime minister is chosen by the party which forms the majority in the lower House of Representatives.

- Britain's Queen Elizabeth II is also Australia's monarch. Australia's constitution gives the Queen the right to veto any Australian law, although the provision has never been used.

- Australia's Governor-General represents the Queen.

- All 150 seats in the House of Representatives will be contested at the November 24 election, along with 40 of the 76 seats in the Senate.

- Elections are held every three years, at a time decided by the prime minister, who has wide powers to call elections earlier.

- Voting is compulsory for Australians aged over 18. Fines can be issued to people who do not vote without a good reason.

- Voter turnout has been between 94 and 96 percent for the past 10 elections.

PEOPLE

- Australia has about 21 million people, including about 480,000 indigenous Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders.

- Aborigines have been in Australia for 40,000 to 60,000 years.

- The first European settlers and British convicts arrived in Australia in 1788 to set up a British penal colony. More than 160,000 convicts were sent from Britain to Australia until 1868.

- About 6.5 million immigrants have moved to Australia since World War II in a post-war migration boom.

- Almost one-in-four Australians were born overseas, and 15 percent of Australians speak a language other than English at home.

- Sydney is Australia's biggest city with about 4.5 million people, followed by the Victorian state capital Melbourne with about 3.8 million people.

- About 64 percent of Australia's population lives in the nation's eight capital cities.

- Australia's median age is 37 years.

- About 64 percent of Australians are Christian. The next biggest religion is Buddhism, with 2.1 percent, and Islam, with 1.7 percent of the population.

GEOGRAPHY

- Australia's land mass covers about 7.7 million sq km (3 million sq mile), and stretches 4,000 km (2,485 miles) east to west, and 3,700 km north to south.

- Australia is the world's largest island and the sixth largest country by area. It is double the size of India, 32 times the size of the United Kingdom and about the same size as the United States without Alaska.

- Australia is the world's second driest continent, behind Antarctica. More than two-thirds of Australia is classified as arid or semi-arid, and more than one third is desert.

- Australia's climate ranges from tropical in the north, to temperate in the south, with arid expanses in the interior and alpine regions covered in winter snow in the southeast.

ECONOMY

- Australia is the world's 13th largest economy, and the 10th biggest industrialized economy.

- Australia is experiencing a prolonged period of economic growth, with real gross domestic product growing an average 3.5 percent a year over the past decade.

- Australia is a major exporter of natural resources and agricultural goods, and is experiencing a prolonged mining boom due to increased demand for minerals and gas from China.

- Minerals and fuel comprise 34 percent of Australian exports, agricultural goods 14 percent and manufactured goods 20 percent.

- Japan is Australia's largest export market, followed closely by China, the United States and South Korea.

- Australia has a tight labor market, which is running close to full employment, with unemployment at 33-year lows of 4.2 percent.

- Inflation ran at 2.1 percent in the year to June 2007. But the central bank is concerned that inflationary pressures could push underlying inflation beyond its 2 to 3 percent target band, which could trigger an interest rate rise.

- Interest rates and rising house prices are a sensitive political issue in Australia, where home ownership is a national aspiration.

- Almost 70 percent of Australians own or are buying their own home. About 36 percent own their home, and about 33 percent are paying off a mortgage.

- The Reserve Bank of Australia increased rates by 25 basis points on August 8 to 6.5 percent curb inflationary pressures.

- Interest rates have risen by 25 basis points nine times since May 2002, and five times since the last election in late 2004.