The name Australia (pronounced /əˈstreɪliə/ in Australian English) is derived from the Latin Terra Australis which means southern land. This was a name used for a hypothetical continent in the Southern Hemisphere since ancient times.
The idea being that if there is land in the Northern Hemisphere then there has to be land in the Southern Hemisphere to balance out the globe.
I love that idea because it’s so simple. Like the smartest people alive at that time we’re like if there is land up here there has got to be land down there or the world would be lopsided? They thought this as far back as the 5th century.
Other names for the hypothetical continent have included Terra Australis Ignota, Terra Australis Incognit’ (“the unknown land of the south”) or Terra Australis Nondum Cognita (“the southern land not yet known”). Other names were Brasiliae Australis (“the southern Brazil”),and Magellanica (“the land of Magellan”).
Matthias Ringmann called it the Ora antarctica (antarctic land) in 1505, and Franciscus Monachus called it the Australis orę (Austral country). In Medieval times it was known as the Antipodes.
For the record Australia is both a country and a continent. The only of its kind.
I think it was best described in one of the articles I read. It said “Australia is a country that is part of a continent also called Australia, all of which is part of a region known as Oceania. Make sense”
Oceania is a created idea to classify all of the island nations in that area and they include Australia in that. It’s kinda weird. When I was growing up we were taught that Australia was a continent.
Australia is a country that is part of a continent also called Australia, all of which is part of a region known as Oceania. Make sense?
Australia is the oldest, flattest, and driest inhabited continent, with the least fertile soils. It is a megadiverse country, and its size gives it a wide variety of landscapes and climates, with deserts in the centre, tropical rainforests in the north-east, and mountain ranges in the south-east.
Aboriginees
The indigenous people in Australia are broken down into 2 groups. The aboriginal people are from the mainland and Tasmania and then there are the Torres Strait people who are Melanesian.
For a long time in my life I didn’t know Tasmania actually existed. I thought it was something created by Looney Tunes. Imagine my surprise when I found out what a Tasmanian Devil actually looked like.
People have been living on Australia’s land for 65,000 years. They came over from land bridges and short sea crossing from Southeast Asia. This was 1000’s of years before humans made it to Europe. The land bridge thing is wild to me. I wish we could find one of those in present day.
Aboriginal Australian culture is one of the oldest continuous cultures on Earth. At the time of first European contact, Aboriginal Australians were complex hunter-gatherers with diverse economies and societies and about 250 different language groups.
That’s not an insignificant number. 250 language groups?
There is evidence that about 3000 years ago there was contact between Indians and Aboriginees because they share about 11% of the same DNA. So aboriginal Australians are part Indian. I’m sure there’s a story there.
The indigenous people believe in something they call dream time. Which is a hard concept to articulate but it has to do with the fact that they don’t see time as a linear thing.
Dreamtime or Dreaming for Australian Aboriginal people represents the time when the Ancestral Spirits progressed over the land and created life and important physical geographic formations and sites. It is sometimes called the Every-when.
They see past, present, and future as a cyclical thing. They also believe the world started as flat and then was carved out by what they call a rainbow snake.
This idea is shared by the aborigines of the northern part of Australia. Other parts of the country believe that the original ancestors were called the wandjina.
Wandjina is the most significant Creation Spirit, associated with rain and therefore the seasonal regeneration of the land and all natural resources. The body of Wandjina is often shown covered with dots that represent the rainfall.
They were considered to be in the Stone Age when Europeans showed up. A Stone Age is defined as period during which stone was widely used to make tools with an edge, a point. This is because they had not developed to metal working before the Euros came.
European Contact
In the 1500’s European colonization was really getting underway and all the big boys were out in the Southeastern Asian islands trying to colonize what they could. It was during this time that the Dutch became the first Europeans to get to Australia.
Now remember, Australia used to be a myth. So it was a pretty big deal when they stumbled upon this large land mass.
Willem Janszoon was the first European to make contact with Australia. On 26 February 1606, Janzoon made landfall at the Pennefather River on the western shore of Cape York in Queensland, near what is now the town of Weipa.
10 of his men died upon leaving the ship and meeting the locals. This prompted him to turn around and go back to Indonesia where the ship had embarked from.
He initially wanted to call Australia New Zealand but that didn’t catch on.
Up until the early 19th century Australia was known as New Holland which it was given by Dutch Explorer Abel Tasman in 1644. His first contact was actually Tasmania instead of mainland Australia.
It wouldn’t come to be known as Australia until British cartographer Matthew Flinders said that it was easier on the ears sometime in the early 1800’s. He also reasoned that there could not be any land further south than this land mass so it must be the terra Australis. Or the southern land yet unknown.
This Flinders guy has his name on alot of stuff over there in Australia. Even statues because he is considered the main explorer in southern Australia.
Antarctica would be discovered like 30 years later.
After the end of the French and Indian War, the British felt the need to expand their colony in a bid for more controlling power of the world. This would send British Explorers to find Australia.
James Cook was the one they sent. He is one of the most well known and most successful British explorers. He made 3 distinct voyages and circumnavigated the world atleast 2 times.
He eventually found and claimed the eastern half of Australia. Calling it New South Wales. Fun fact about James Cook, he was the inspiration for Capt. Kirk of Star Trek.
Captain Cook was killed at Kealakekua Bay, on 14 February 1779, in a confrontation with the Indigenous people of Hawaii. He was killed while trying to kidnap the king of Hawaii.
Evidently while trying to get him in the king in the boat some of the village people hit him over the head with a rock and stabbed him to death; carrying him off into the town. His soldiers were watching this thru a telescope from the ship.
The idea of prisoners settling Australia
Before America declared its independence it would send their criminals and prisoners to America. Alot of them came as indentured servants who had skills and would work off their punishment. The same type of system was instituted in Australia.
In 1788 Britain Officially colonized Australia. In January of that year a fleet of 11 ships carrying more than 1000 people were lead by Capt. Arthur Phillips to Sydney Cove. They are known as the first fleet.
The majority of them were convicts and most of them were male. The goal was to establish a colony, discipline the prisoners and find a way to work with the indigenous population.
This was not easy due to the terrain and it would be a slow process to colonize Sydney.
By the 1790’s free settlers began to come to Australia as well.
By 1808 10,000 Europeans lived in Australia. Eventually Britain would claim the rest of the continent in 1827. They could call that area Western Australia.
- OFFICIAL NAME: Commonwealth of Australia
- FORM OF GOVERNMENT: Federal parliamentary democracy; Commonwealth realm
- CAPITAL: Canberra
- POPULATION: 23,470,145
- OFFICIAL LANGUAGE: English
- MONEY: Australian dollar
- AREA: 2,969,906 square miles (7,692,024 square kilometers)
- MAJOR MOUNTAIN RANGES: Great Dividing Range, Macdonnell Ranges
- MAJOR RIVERS: Murray-Darling, Murrumbidgee, Lachlan
- The Australian Alps get more snow than the Swiss Alps. …
- 90% of Australians live on the coast. …
- Tasmania has the cleanest air in the world. …
- The Great Barrier Reef is the largest eco-system in the world. …
- Kangaroos only exist in Australia
- Australia has over 60 separate wine regions.
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