This Is How Australia Got Its Name

Publish date: 2024-05-09

A land even farther south, and therefore arguably more befitting of the name Australia, was first known to have been sighted in 1820 — the continent of Antarctica (via Royal Museums Greenwich). Before the new region could be named anything though, in 1824 Britain had officially recognized what was once New Holland as Australia at the suggestion of New South Wales Governor Lachlan Macquarie (via TrishansOz). Thus not only was Australia given a name that did not strictly apply to it after the new discovery but for decades Antarctica was left without an official name at all (via World Atlas).

On a somewhat related note, for a time in the late 18th to early 19th centuries, many parts of mainland Europe instead knew the continent of modern-day Australia as "Ulimaroa." According to the University of Melbourne, this was due to a language barrier between Swedish cartographer Daniel Djurberg and the Maori language. Djurberg took a word that he thought referred to Australia in the latter language, but likely instead referred to separate landmass, and applied it to his maps. In many regions, this was the continent's accepted name until as late as 1819.

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