This wonderful book evokes all of Australia's many moods and dramatic vistas in engaging text by Roff Smith and stunning images by renowned photographer Sam Abell. Text and pictures explore the colorful history and distinctive cultures that make the land down under so irresistible and unforgettable.

At once a young and vibrant nation of immigrants and a place inhabited for 60,000 years by Aboriginal tribes whose haunting art and ancient traditions are among the oldest on Earth, Australia boasts the world's biggest cattle ranch, some of its richest mineral deposits, and a wild, wondrous landscape of lush rain forest and forbidding desert, snowy mountains and tropical oceans bejeweled with the colorful corals of the Great Barrier Reef. Australia is truly a world unto itself.

Join National Geographic for a once-in-a-lifetime visit to the exotic, extraordinary land its inhabitants affectionately call Oz.