ChatterBank1 min ago
Who named Australia and does the word have a meaning
01:00 Tue 23rd Oct 2001 | People & Places
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A.� The answer, Judy, appears to be the ancient Greeks. Or the Egyptians. Or a Dutch mapmaker called Ortelius. It means southern land.< xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />
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Q.� More please.
A.� The ancient Greeks were convinced the world was round and comprised a northern and a southern hemisphere. According to Aristotle (384-322 BC), nature was symmetrical. If there was a warm and cold zone in the north, then there must the same on the south. Thus Australia existed only in myth as a Great Southern Land or Terra Australis.
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Q.� And who discovered Australia
A.� The Aborigines - about 50,000 years ago. They were nomadic hunters, of various tribes, probably from Asia - and are still there today, playing an important part in modern Australian society. From 100 AD, Malay and Indian traders arrived in Australia. They were after sea slugs, collected from the Australian coast, a highly prized delicacy in China.
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Q.� What about Europeans
A.� The first Europeans did not come until 1606, when Dutchman William Jansz sighted Australia and explored the Gulf of Carpentaria. The Dutch ship Eendracht, commanded by Captain Dirk Hartog, was in 1616 the first European ship to land on Australian soil at Shark Bay, Western Australia. In the 1640s, another Dutchmen, Abel Tasman, discovered Tasmania and New Zealand and proved that Australia was not joined to the Antarctic continent. Tasman named Tasmania Van Dieman's Land, after the governor of the Dutch East Indies who had commissioned his expedition.
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Q.� And did they call it Australia
A.� No - on their maps, the Dutch named it New Holland, but never formally claimed or occupied the country. Perhaps they saw little trade value in it. Dutch Cartographer Abraham Ortelius (1527-98), publisher of the first modern atlas, Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, in 1570 had referred to the still-unknown Antarctica - then presumed to include Australia - as Terra Australis Nondum Cognita (unknown south land).
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Q.� So when did it start getting popular
A.� English buccaneer William Dampier made two trips to Australia in 1698-1700; the British were also unimpressed by his reports about the place. Seventy years later, the British sent Captain James Cook to take another look at Terra Australis. He landed at Botany Bay, on the East Coast, in 1770 and at Possession Island, where on 23 August, he claimed it for Great Britain. He named it New South Wales.
Captain James Cook
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Q.� And who settled there
A.� It was initially established as a penal colony. Half of the Australian continent was then called New South Wales. Later, the other half was known as Western Australia. Then came the gradual introduction of other colonies such as South Australia, Victoria, Queensland and Tasmania. They would later become states, along with New South Wales and Western Australia. Britain did not officially claim the entire Australian continent until 1827.
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Q.� And the name of this all
A.� The name Australia began to be used regularly for the southern continent in 1819 - mainly because of a British Colonial Office inspector named Judge John Thomas Bigge.� He had been appointed as commissioner to investigate 'all the laws, regulations and usages of the settlements' in the colony.
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By Steve Cunningham
