If the flooding in outback Australia were a country, it would be the world’s 31st largest.
© Anthony Calvert/Bureau of MeteorologyIf the flooding in outback Australia were a country, it would be the world’s 31st largest.
The extent of flood waters that have engulfed Queensland over the past fortnight is so widespread it has covered an area more than four times the size of the United Kingdom. The inundation is larger than France and Germany combined - and is even bigger than Texas.

The seemingly endless plains of outback Queensland are so vast and remote as to boggle any attempts to visualise the scale of what is being described as one of the most devastating floods in living memory.

The Bureau of Meteorology said on Friday that the flooding had "severely impacted" more catchments spanning about 1m sq km since prolonged downpours began drenching south-west and central Queensland on 23 March.

To put that in perspective, Tasmania is 15 times smaller (64,519 sq km or 24,911 sq miles); the land area of the United Kingdom is 241,930 sq km, and Texas is 695,662 sq km.



The flooded area is more than four times the size of Victoria (227,038 sq km) and bigger than New South Wales (801,137 sq km). It is about the same size as Egypt and about half the size of Saudi Arabia or Mexico.

Homes under flood waters in the town of Windorah in central-west Queensland.
© Queensland Fire DepartmentHomes under flood waters in the town of Windorah in central-west Queensland.
If the flooding were a country, it would be the 31st largest on Earth.

The bureau said many stations across the Queensland and New South Wales interior had broken their March or annual rainfall records.

"In four days (from 23 to 26 March) parts of southern and south-western Queensland had more than their annual average rainfall," a BoM spokesperson said.

"Widespread major flooding continues for parts of Queensland and far northern New South Wales [and] this is likely to continue for many weeks as flood waters slowly move downstream.

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