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Australia's estimated resident population was closing in on 20 million as of June 2003. This figure was a 12.5% increase over the past decade. Australia's growth rate of 1.2% for the year between June 2002 and June 2003 was equal to the overall world growth rate.

Australia's population growth rate was similar to New Zealand (1.1%), Canada and Thailand (each 1.0%), higher than Hong Kong (0.7%) and the United States (0.9%), considerably higher than Japan and Germany (each 0.1%) and the United Kingdom (0.3%), and well below the growth rates for Papua New Guinea (2.4%) and Singapore (1.9%).

Australia's estimated resident population of 19.9 million at June 2003 has grown by over 2.1 million over the past few years. The growth of Australia's population has two components: natural increase – the number of births minus the number of deaths – and net overseas migration – net permanent and long-term migration plus the migration adjustment. Since its Federation in 1901, Australia's population has increased by over 16.1 million. The main component of population growth in Australia has been natural increase, which has contributed about two-thirds of the total growth since the beginning of the 20th century.

Most of Australia’s population is concentrated in two widely separated coastal regions. The larger of these in terms of area and population, lies in the south-east and east. The smaller of the two regions is in the south-west corner of the continent. In both coastal regions the population is concentrated in urban centers, particularly the state and territory capital cities.

Australia's population density as of June 30, 2003 was 2.6 people per square kilometer, compared with 2.4 people per square kilometer in 1998. The Australian Capital Territory had the highest population density of the states and territories as of June 2003 with 137 people per square kilometer, followed by Victoria with 22 people per square kilometer. The Northern Territory had a population density of only 0.1 people per square kilometer, the lowest of all the states and territories.

The Indigenous population as of June 30, 2001 was 458,500 people of which 134,900 (29%) lived in New South Wales, 125,900 (28%) in Queensland, 65,900 (14%) in Western Australia and 56,900 (12%) in the Northern Territory. The Northern Territory had the largest proportion of its population who were Indigenous – 29% compared with 4% or less for all other states and the Australian Capital Territory.

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