Most of the rainforest found in the "Australian" region lies on the world's second largest island, New Guinea.

Australia, the world's smallest continent, has small sections of forest on the Cape York peninsula in the extreme Northeastern part of the country. Australia once had more rainforest cover but thousands of years of fires for agriculture has left much of the continent too dry to support wet tropical forest.

Although technically not part of any forest realm, islands in the Pacific -- like Hawaii, Tahiti, and Fiji -- also have rainforest cover. Typically these volcanic islands had unique plant and animal species prior to the arrival of humans.

Map showing world distribution of rainforests in Australia

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