Name of Australia
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The name Australia is derived from the Latin australis, meaning 'southern', and specifically from the hypothetical Terra Australis postulated in pre-modern geography. The name was popularised by the e
The name Australia was specifically applied to the continent for the first time in 1794.
Early world maps
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The earliest known world maps date to classical antiquity, the oldest examples of the 6th to 5th centuries BCE still based on the flat Earth paradigm. World maps assuming a spherical Earth first appea
A 1628 reconstruction of Posidonius' ideas about the positions of continents (many details could not have been known by Posidonius)
An 1898 reconstruction of Pomponius Mela's view of the world
Modern re-drawing of the Tabula Peutingeriana, from Iberia in the west, to India in the east.
Original Tabula Rogeriana (1154) with south up.