Terra Australis

Terra Australis (Latin terra "earth", "land"; australis "south " ) is the name of a postulated in antiquity, hypothetical Südkontinentes. Coined the name Claudius Ptolemy ( 100-175 ) in his work Geographike Hyphegesis. He believed that all the seas are surrounded by land, as the Mediterranean Sea. Therefore Ptolemy said a large land mass lying in the south terra australis incognita ( altgr.: ἄγνωστος γῆ ( agnostos gé ) ) requires the limiting of the Indian Ocean and to Africa is (Latin incognita, "unknown" - because no one saw this country had ).

Notional southern continent

Ancient and medieval cartographers contributed so in their world maps a fictitious southern continent one that stretched from the Indian Ocean to the South Pole. Some sided this land mass yet with entries of invented mountains and rivers and often with mythical creatures.

The former idea after it was a continent with a pleasant, warm climate, rich natural resources and a civilized population, to which one could build trade relations. (See also under Kerguelen. )

Towards the end of the Middle Ages turned to the interest caused by the great voyages of discovery, again reinforces the thesis of the existence of a huge, legendary southern continent to. So Magellan believed to have discovered the Strait of Magellan in 1520 the passage between America and the southern continent, which is why the alleged southern continent was referred to in the subsequent period as Magallanica. However, Francis Drake on his circumnavigation 1577-80 proved that the Magellan Strait is a channel between two continents: South of South America he discovered numerous islands, and when he finally reached Cape Horn, stretched before him only the open sea.

Enigmatic is a published long before the official world map discoveries of French Guillaume Le Testu of 1555, which is the coast of Western Australia and the mouth of the Fitzroy River accurate. From then leading naval power Holland the first sightings of the northern and western coast of the Fifth Continent have survived only in the years around 1600.

Discovery trips around Australia

On May 3, 1606 Pedro Fernandez de Quirós who reached New Hebrides (now Vanuatu). One of these islands, Espiritu Santo, seemed to him so great that he surmised, this might not act to the legendary southern continent terra australis incognita. He named the island La Austrialia del Espiritu Santo then ( the southern land of the Holy Spirit ). Here he founded the colony of Nova Jerusalem.

Abel Tasman also at first believed to be able to find the unknown south land when he left in 1642 sighted for the Dutch East India Company on reconnaissance trip to the 1619 Terra incognita (Western Australia). On its sea route around Australia instead he proved that this continent does not extend far to the South Pole.

Charles Bouvet held instead in 1739 sighted by him Bouvet Island in the South Atlantic for part of the southern continent, and Alexander Dalrymple's writings and were convinced of the occasion, James Cook to have the areas around the 60th parallel south explore in more detail. Only Cook showed in 1772 with his circumnavigation of Antarctica that the Indian and Atlantic Ocean merge into each other and the land mass must be considerably smaller, so the postulated Terra Australis does not exist.

This and the naturalization of the name Australia are probably the reasons that Antarctica, the only real contender, was finally rewarded with a different name.