So, in talking to people from the US, one thing that sometimes comes up is how big Texas is (eg. the phrase "As big as Texas" or, as I've heard at least once, "Texas: It's bigger than France") ... and the inevitable Alaskan comeback (Alaska being over twice the size of Texas). One thing that I keep coming up against is that a lot of people don't seem to realise how big Australia really is (and get all surprised when I say it takes 5 hours to fly from Sydney to Perth) - being somewhat closer to the equator I guess the land mass isn't as stretched out on a map. 

So I jumped on Wikipedia and had a look ... here are some interesting land areas that (in my experience) often come up in discussions on this topic (all in km squared, multiply by 0.3861 for miles squared).

Now I make the point that I'm not saying the Australian Antarctic Territory is equivalent to Alaska, the former having no permanent population and thus no government or legislature, but a lot of people don't realise that this area is still "officially" Australia (according to Wikipedia it's a true Australian territory - presumably like the Northern Territory is part of Australia, although due to international agreements Australia doesn't actually exercise sovereignty over the AAT) - Australia even issues postage stamps for this area. But yes, Texas is bigger than France. Just. :-)

Oh and for those who are confused about Kalgoorlie and Murchison-Eyre, an Australian Electoral Division is represented by one member of the Australian federal (national) parliament whilst a Western Australian Electoral District is represented by one member of the Western Australian state parliament.