![]() The land ( terra in Latin) in this zone was the Terra Australis. Marcus Tullius Cicero used the term cingulus australis ("southern zone") in referring to the Antipodes in Somnium Scipionis ("Dream of Scipio"). Ptolemy (2nd century AD) believed that the Indian Ocean was enclosed on the south by land, and that the lands of the Northern Hemisphere should be balanced by land in the south. Origins A printed map from the 15th century depicting Ptolemy's description of the Ecumene by Johannes Schnitzer (1482). The continent that would come to be named Antarctica would be explored decades after Flinders' 1814 book on Australia, which he had titled A Voyage to Terra Australis, and after his naming switch had gained popularity. In the early 1800s, British explorer Matthew Flinders popularized the naming of Australia after Terra Australis, giving his rationale that there was "no probability" of finding any significant land mass anywhere more south than Australia. Meanwhile, having lost its name of Australia, the south polar continent was nameless for decades until Antarctica was coined in the 1890s. In the nineteenth century, the colonial authorities in Sydney re-allocated the name Australia to New Holland and its centuries-old Dutch name eventually disappeared. Captain Cook and his contemporaries knew that the sixth continent (today's Australia), which they called New Holland, was entirely separate from the imagined (but still undiscovered) seventh continent (today's Antarctica). ![]() In Medieval times it was known as the Antipodes.ĭuring the eighteenth century, today's Australia was not conflated with Terra Australis, as it sometimes was in the twentieth century. Matthias Ringmann called it the Ora antarctica (antarctic land) in 1505, and Franciscus Monachus called it the Australis orę (Austral country). Other names were Brasiliae Australis ("the southern Brazil"), and Magellanica ("the land of Magellan"). Other names for the hypothetical continent have included Terra Australis Ignota, Terra Australis Incognit' ("the unknown land of the south") or Terra Australis Nondum Cognita ("the southern land not yet known"). This theory of balancing land has been documented as early as the 5th century on maps by Macrobius, who uses the term Australis on his maps. Its existence was not based on any survey or direct observation, but rather on the idea that continental land in the Northern Hemisphere should be balanced by land in the Southern Hemisphere. Terra Australis ( Latin: ' Southern Land ') was a hypothetical continent first posited in antiquity and which appeared on maps between the 15th and 18th centuries. ![]() 1570 map by Abraham Ortelius depicting " Terra Australis Nondum Cognita" as a large continent on the bottom of the map ![]()
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