Naming Australia
Australia has been known by many names over the years. The continent was once a small part of the largest continent on Earth. Thousands of millions of years ago our land was part of the large supercontinent we call Gondwanaland. It was situated over the southern polar region. Later on Gondwanaland collided with another continent to become even bigger. This huge land-mass was to be called Pangaea. Years later Pangaea broke into two parts again with our land still a part of Gondwanaland again (stage two).
Years later Gondwanaland broke apart and our land became a separate continent. Whilst the rest of the world developed over the years, there was no knowledge about the existence of our land. Less than two thousand years ago, though, there was talk about an unknown land. Geographers said that there had to be a large land-mass to balance the Earth.
Earth's northern land-masses were well known but it was theorised that southern land-masses must exist to balance the planet. The mystery land-mass(es) were referred to as "Terra Incognita", the Unknown Land. Then there came reference to "Terra Australis Incognita", the Unknown Land far away in the South (or Unknown South Land). The word "Australis" features in the name given to the light phenomenon seen in the southern hemisphere, Aurora Australis. Various names began to crop up for our land as explorers heard about or discovered more about our land. When Marco Polo heard about a huge island to the south of Java he called it "Locach". Geographers of the time called it Java Le Grande, or Greater Java. In 1606 a Portuguese explorer thought that he had found the Great South Land. He called his discovery "Austrialia del Espiritu Santo" (Southland of the Holy Spirit). It turned out that he had (only) found what later became known as the New Hebrides and (later on) Vanuatu.
Lieut. James Cook charted the region in 1774 and applied the name New Hebrides to the area (which is some 1,000 miles east of Australia). When Dutch explorers visited our shores they named our land "Nouvelle Hollande", New Holland. When Captain James Cook landed on our eastern shore he called the land New South Wales. This was not the State that we now know. It was all the land "east of the 135th meridian of east longitude", all of our country with the exception of Tasmania and Western Australia. Cook had thought that the coastline where he had landed resembled that of south Wales. If the French had claimed our land as their own they would have been named it Terra Napoleon.
Matthew Flinders charted most of the coast between 1801 & 1803 and proved that the mainland was an island. A chart of Australia, completed by Flinders in 1804 while he was a prisoner in Mauritius, frequently referred to New Holland and New South Wales together as Terra Australis. The chart contains the first known use by Flinders or any other navigator of the name 'Australia' for the island continent as we know it today.
Flinders' chart, which left Mauritius on 14th November 1804, was consigned to Sir Joseph Banks in London. When Flinders returned to England in 1810, he suggested that the land be named "Australia" rather than "Terra Australis". Because the New Hebrides had originally been called "Austrialia" (del Espiritu Santo), Banks and the Admiralty disagreed with Flinders and required him to reverse the names 'Australia' back to 'Terra Australis'.
When his journal, A Voyage to Terra Australis, was published in 1814, Flinders persisted by writing in his introduction: 'Had I permitted myself any innovation upon the original term, it would have been to convert it into Australia; as being more agreeable to the ear, and as an assimilation to the names of the other great portions of the earth.'
In 1817 Governor Macquarie of New South Wales received a copy of Flinders' journal, Learning of Flinders' preference for 'Australia', Macquarie started to use 'Australia' in his official correspondence, in spite of knowing that his superiors did not like the name and had attempted to stop its use. Later explorer Phillip Parker King also used 'Australia' on his maps of the northern and western coasts, and by the end of the 1820s 'Australia' was commonly used as the continent's name.
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A guide to how Australia's states and territories, cities and towns got their names.
Note: the reason behind why a place or geographical name was given was rarely considered worthy of recording at the time, hence the recorded explanations for many place names being given can never ever be deemed 100% accurate. Sometimes the reason for a name being given is obvious; but often a certain amount of guesswork is involved in determining a name's origin, which explains why official records, history books and websites like this may not be in total agreement with each other, because no one knows for certain. We welcome feedback on any place name we have recorded that you have reason to question, and will be happy to change our published information if an alternate explanation can be sustantiated.
State and Territory index:
NSW | Vic | Tas | SA | WA | NT | Qld | ACT
NEW SOUTH WALES
On 22nd August 1770, after having sailed north along the east coast of Australia, British explorer Lieuitant James Cook landed on Possession Island in Torres Strait. The purpose for going ashore is recorded in his journal: "I now once more hoisted English Coulers and in the Name of His Majesty King George the Third, took possession of the whole Eastern Coast from the above Latitude down to this place by the name of New Wales." Upon returning the England, he amended the name to New South Wales. What exactly about the east coast of Australian reminded Cook of South Wales is not known. Cook's instructions had been these: 'You are also with the consent of the Natives to take possession, in the name of the King of Great Britain, of convenient Situations in such Countries as you may discover, that have not already been discovered or visited by any other European Power ... But if you find the Countries so discovered are uninhabited, you are to take possession of them for His Majesty.'
Cook's proclamation effectively declared the whole of Australia as British territory, except for the western third, which was still called New Holland. New South Wales as proclaimed by Cook extended north to south from Cape York to a latitude of 38 degrees south (which excluded Tasmania part of Victoria), and east of the 135th meridian of east longitude included all islands of the South Pacific Ocean discovered during the voyage not previously discovered by an European country, which included New Zealand and Fiji.
Cook's claim was sealed in January 1788, when Arthur Phillip arrived with the First Fleet to found a convict settlement at what is now Sydney. Phillip, as Governor of New South Wales, exercised nominal authority over all of Australia east of the 135th meridian, as well as the islands of the South Pacific, including New Zealand. Phillip was appointed as 'Captain-General and Governor-in-Chief in and over Our territory called New South Wales, extending from the Northern Cape or extremity of the coast called Cape York, in the latitude of ten degrees thirty-seven minutes south, to the southern extremity of the said territory of New South Wales or South Cape, in the latitude of forty-three degrees thirty-nine minutes south and of all the country inland westward as far as the one hundred and thirty-fifth degree of east longitude reckoning from the meridian of Greenwich, including all the islands adjacent in the Pacific Ocean within the latitudes aforesaid of ten degrees thirty-seven minutes south and forty-three degrees thirty-nine minutes south'. It was these territories that Phillip proclaimed as being under his jurisdiction as Captain-General and Governor-in-Chief when he raised the British flag at Sydney Cove on 26th January 1788.
For the next 40 years the history of New South Wales was identical with the History of Australia, since it was not until 1803 that any settlements were made outside the boundaries of New South Wales, and these, at Hobart and Launceston in Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania), were at first dependencies of New South Wales. It was not until 1825 that Van Diemen's Land became a separate colony. Also that year, on 16th July, the border of New South Wales was set further west at the 129th meridian to encompass the short lived settlement on Melville Island. In 1829 this border became the border with Western Australia, which was proclaimed a colony.
The streets of Sydney
Sydney's Suburbs - alphabetically listed
Rivers and Creeks
Coastal Features
Port Jackson
Cities and Towns of New South Wales
VICTORIA
 The states of Victoria and Queensland were both named in honour of Queen Victoria. Melbourne had been founded by John Batman two years before the 18-year-old Princess Victoria came to the English throne in 1837. The first petition for the separation of the Port Phillip District (or 'Australia Felix' as it was referred to by some) from New South Wales was drafted in 1840 by Henry Fyshe Gisborne and presented to Govenor Gipps by him. Gipps, who had previously been in favour of separation, rejected the petition. The British Act of Parliament separating Victoria from New South Wales, and naming and providing a Constitution for the new colony was eventually signed ten years later by Queen Victoria on 5th August 1850; the new colony named in her honour. The signing was followed by enabling legislation passed by the New South Wales Legislative Council on 1st July 1851. This was formally the founding moment of the Colony of Victoria, separation from New South Wales was established by Section 1 of the 1851 Act.
TASMANIA
 The first reported sighting of Tasmania by an European was on 24th November 1642 by the Dutch explorer Abel Tasman who named the island Anthoonij van Diemenslandt, after his sponsor, the Governor of the Dutch East Indies. The name was later shortened to Van Diemens Land by the British. The first settlement was by the British at Risdon Cove on the eastern bank of the Derwent estuary in 1803, by a small party sent from Sydney, under Lt. John Bowen. Another Van Diemens Land settlement was established by Capt. David Collins 5 km to the south in 1804 in Sullivan's Cove on the western side of the Derwent, where fresh water was more plentiful. The latter settlement became known as Hobart Town or Hobarton, later shortened to Hobart, after the British Colonial Secretary of the time, Lord Hobart. The settlement at Risdon was later abandoned. Van Diemens Land was proclaimed a separate colony from New South Wales, with its own judicial establishment and Legislative Council, on 3rd December 1825. The name of Van Diemen's Land officially changed to Tasmania upon the granting of responsible self-government in 1856. The name honours Dutch explorer Abel Tasman.
SOUTH AUSTRALIA
The first recorded European sighting of the South Australian coast was in 1627 when the Dutch ship the Gulden Zeepaert, skippered by Francois Thijssen, examined the coastline. Thijssen named his discovery "Pieter Nuyts Land", after the highest ranking individual on board. British Captain Matthew Flinders and French Captain Nicolas Baudin independently charted the southern coast of the Australian continent. Baudin referred to the land as "Terre Napoléon". Neither name was retained when a British free settlement was established with the founding of Adelaide in 1836. The name "South Australia" had been coined in 1834 when the South Australian Association has been formed for the purpose of establishing a colony on St Vincent's Gulf. The name was ratified by the passing of The South Australia Colonisation Act 1834 by the British Government.
WESTERN AUSTRALIA
 The first European to sight Western Australia was the Dutch explorer, Dirk Hartog, who on 26 October 1616 landed at what is now known as Cape Inscription, Dirk Hartog Island. Other Dutch navigators, along with the occasional visit by ships of other nationalities, gradually charted the coast, though it would be the Dutch who gave the newly discovered land the name "New Holland". They also named sections of the coast - Eendrachtsland; D'Edel's Land; Leeuwin's Land; de Witt's Land - after the first ships and nevagators to visit these shores. The first formal claim of possession for Britain was made by Commander George Vancouver RN (later captain) on 29th September 1791 on the spot he named Possession Point, at the tip of the peninsula between the waters he also named - King George III Sound and Princess Royal Harbour at Albany. The "third" (III) was dropped later. In 1826, the New South Wales governor Ralph Darling established a settlement at King George Sound. It consisted of a small detachment headed by Edmund Lockyer with 18 soldiers, one captain, one doctor, one storekeeper and 23 convicts were sent as a labour force. After the formal declaration in 1829 of the Swan River Colony (some 410 km to the North West), control of King George Sound was transferred from New South Wales to Swan River Colony. As Lieutenant Governor, Stirling had sole authority to draft laws and decide day-to-day affairs. In 1832 he appointed a Legislative Council of four government officials to assist him, and it was at that time that the name "Western Australia" was first used.
QUEENSLAND
 The states of Victoria and Queensland were both named in honour of Queen Victoria. The 18-year-old Princess Victoria came to the English throne at a time when the future of the convict settlement at Moreton Bay was under question (1837) and when the possibility of free settlement was being advocated. By the time the colony was separated from New South Wales (1859), Queen Victoria and Albert, her Prince Consort, were held in high regard and affection by her subjects around the world. In spite of John Dunmore Lang's advocacy of Cooksland as the name for the new colony, patriotic fervour won out and Queensland in honour of Queen Victoria it became.
NORTHERN TERRITORY
 Following the European settlement of Australian in 1788, four unsuccessful attempts were made to settle coastal areas of the Northern Territory prior to the establishment of Darwin. In 1863 the Northern Territory was annexed by South Australia by Letters patent, bringing into use the name "Northern Territory". Following annexation of the Territory by South Australia a fourth attempt at settlement occurred in 1864. Escape Cliffs, about 75 kilometres from present day Darwin, in 1864. Finally, on 5th February 1869, George Goyder, the Surveyor-General of South Australia, established a small settlement of 135 men and women at Port Darwin. Goyder named the settlement Palmerston, after the British Prime Minister Lord Palmerston. It was later changed to Darwin.
AUSTRALIAN CAPITAL TERRITORY
 In the early 20th century, the region was chosen as the site for the creation of Australia's capital city in 1908. The Territory was formally ceded to the Government of Australia by the Government of New South Wales in 1909 and additional land at Jervis Bay was also surrendered to the Commonwealth for the establishment of a sea port for the capital. It officially came under government control as the Federal Capital Territory on 1st January 1911. The planning and construction of Canberra followed, with the Parliament of Australia finally moving there in 1927. The Territory officially became the Australian Capital Territory in 1938.
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