The
Dutch adjectival form Australische was
used by Dutch officials in Batavia to
refer to the newly discovered land to
the south as early as 1638. The first
use of the word "Australia"
in English was a 1693 translation of Les
Aventures de Jacques Sadeur dans la Découverte
et le Voyage de la Terre Australe, a 1692
French novel by Gabriel de Foigny under
the pen name Jacques Sadeur [1]. Alexander
Dalrymple then used it in An Historical
Collection of Voyages and Discoveries
in the South Pacific Ocean (1771), to
refer to the entire South Pacific region.
In 1793, George Shaw and Sir James Smith
published Zoology and Botany of New Holland,
in which they wrote of "the vast
island, or rather continent, of Australia,
Australasia or New Holland."
Sydney
was established on this site.The name
"Australia" was popularised
by the 1814 work A Voyage to Terra Australis
by the navigator Matthew Flinders who
was the first person to circumnavigate
Australia. Despite its title, which reflected
the view of the Admiralty, Flinders used
the word "Australia" in the
book, which was widely read and gave the
term general currency. Governor Lachlan
Macquarie of New South Wales subsequently
used the word in his dispatches to England.
In 1817 he recommended that it be officially
adopted. In 1824, the British Admiralty
agreed that the continent should be known
officially as Australia.
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