What does Australia mean? How Australia got its name

The name “Australia” derives from the Latin “Terra Australis” – meaning “South Land”. But Australia hasn’t always gone by its current name.

Australia hasn’t always had the name Australia. For tens of thousands of years, it was called hundreds of different names by the Indigenous people who lived there. But Australia is derived from the Latin “Terra Australis”, which means South Land.

What does Australia mean? Early names of Australia

New names came with new explorers, however. And in the 17^th century Dutch ships started travelling up and down the west coast. The Dutch navigators called the continent “New Holland”, but didn’t show any real interest in exploring it.

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Take Blue Mountains day tour from Sydney – with kangaroo-feeding at a wildlife park, Scenic World tickets and a Parramatta River cruise.
Snorkel or dive on the Great Barrier Reef from Cairns.
Do Australia’s most spectacular drive on a Great Ocean Road day tour from Melbourne.
Drive along the beach on a 4WD day tour of Fraser Island, the world’s biggest sand island.
Have a dune-top barbecue dinner and stargazing session in the shadow of Uluru.
See penguins on Phillip Island – and more native wildlife at the Moonlit Sanctuary – on a day trip from Melbourne.
Go snorkelling, sandboarding and kayaking on Moreton Island from Brisbane.
Meet gloriously cute quokkas on Rottnest Island near Perth with a ferry and bike hire package.
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Much later on, the British did see some value, however. Lieutenant James Cook arrived on his scouting mission in 1770. He called the eastern half of the continent ‘New South Wales’. And then he claimed it as the property of the British crown.

It was still called New South Wales when the First Fleet of settlers arrived at Sydney Cove in 1788.

Sydney Cove in what is now known as Australia — Sydney Cove was where the First Fleet settled in 1788, before the name Australia was used. Photo by David Whitley/ Australia Travel Questions

What does Australia mean? Terra Australis Incognita

For centuries, though, European scientists and geographers believed in an unknown continent. It must be somewhere in the vast, uncharted southern hemisphere. The theoretical entity was referred to under the Latin term Terra Australis Incognita, meaning Unknown South Land.

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Matthew Flinders and the name Australia

This was riffed on by Matthew Flinders, who, in 1803, became the first person to circumnavigate Australia. This included a fateful meeting with Frenchman Nicolas Baudin in Encounter Bay. A year later, Matthew Flinders referred to the continent as Australia on a hand-drawn map. He’s the first known person to do so, and a copy of that map can be found in the National Library of Australia in Canberra.

The book containing the map wasn’t published until 1814, and even then Terra Australis was still the preferred name. But over in Sydney, Governor of New South Wales Lachlan Macquarie received a copy of the book in 1817, and started using the name “Australia” in his official correspondence. Over time, the preferences shifted. By the 1830s, Australia was commonly called Australia. This was even though references were usually made to the individual colonies (later states) rather than the continent as a whole.

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