What was Australia called in the olden days?
By Ami from QLD
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Australia was originally known as Terra Australis Incognita, a Latin term meaning "Unknown southern land".
After the Dutch visited the western coast in the 1600s, they named the western half of the continent "New Holland". When James Cook charted the eastern coast of Australia some 150 years after the Dutch had already landed in the west, he claimed the eastern half for England, giving it the name "New South Wales".
I did a little research on this when I saw the question. It sounds like there was no one term for the Australian continent given by the indigenous people of the area. Although they are called "aboriginal", that is a blanket term for many different tribes and languages. Also, the languages were also relatively simple, so they probably just referred to it as "the land" in whatever language they were speaking.
Such an interesting place, it's on my bucket list to visit!
New Holland.
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