What ocean is west of Australia?

The Indian Ocean lies to the west of Australia, separating the continent from Africa and the Indian subcontinent. It covers about 70 million square kilometres and is the world's third-largest ocean. Australia's Indian Ocean coastline runs along Western Australia and the western part of the Northern Territory.

The Western Australian coast on the Indian Ocean stretches more than 12,500 kilometres if all bays and inlets are counted, the longest stretch of any Australian state. Major Indian Ocean ports include Fremantle (the gateway to Perth), Geraldton, Port Hedland, and Dampier. Port Hedland and Dampier together handle most of the world's seaborne iron ore trade, exporting Pilbara iron ore to East Asian steel mills, especially in China, Japan, and South Korea.

Several seas form parts of the Indian Ocean around Australia. The Timor Sea lies between Australia's north-west coast and Timor-Leste, and contains important offshore oil and gas fields including the Bayu-Undan and Greater Sunrise gas reserves. The Arafura Sea, sometimes counted as part of the Indian Ocean and sometimes as the Pacific, lies between Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory and southern Indonesia and Papua. South-west of the continent, the Indian Ocean opens out toward Antarctica, with no land in between.

Australia administers two inhabited Indian Ocean external territories: Christmas Island (population about 1,800), located 1,500 kilometres north-west of Australia closer to Java than to the Australian mainland; and the Cocos (Keeling) Islands (population about 600), 2,750 kilometres north-west of Perth. Both are administered from Canberra and use Australian dollars but sit in their own time zones.