Topography refers to the features and forms of a land surface. Topographic information is used for multiple reasons depending on the purpose of the application. These include urban planning, emergency management, mining, surveying, and recreational uses.

The Australian continent is divided into four primary topographic regions.

These are: 

The low sandy eastern coastal plain

The central plains

The eastern highlands

The western plateau

Most of the mountains on the Australian continent have eroded over time with only about 6% of the whole continent currently above 2000ft (600m). The average elevation is below 1000 feet, and the highest point here is Mt. Kosciusko, 7,310 ft (2,228 m) which is at the south-eastern part of New South Wales. The lowest is Lake Eyre in South Australia, which is 49 feet below sea level. Australia is one of the oldest geologies in the world with grains of rock found in West Australia in 1983 dated to be around 4.1 to 4.2 billion years old, making them the oldest to be found on Earth.

The only permanent river system, which without a doubt is also the most important one, is formed by Murrumbidgee, Darling, and Murray rivers in the southeast. The largest river in Australia is the Murray River which flows right from the Australian Alps in New South Wales to the sea below Adelaide in South Australia, covering a distance of 2600km. There are other important rivers as well, but they are relatively ephemeral as they flow in abundance during the wet season and remain dry for other parts of the year. The largest lakes here are without outlets and dry up after the wet season as well.

The coastline contains only a few capes or bay, making it relatively smooth and there are major sea inlets – in the south, the Great Australian Bight and the Cape York Peninsula, and in the north, the Gulf of Carpentaria.  Another significant feature of the Australian topography is the Great Barrier Reef which is the largest coral reef in the world covering a distance of close to 2000km.