Connecting Terra Australis to the world using maps and images as sources of evidence

Ancient writers & first maps

The search for the Southern Continent

A visual timeline

AD 50
Pomponius Mela — "Alter Orbis"
Ancient Roman geographer proposes a mysterious southern world beyond the known continents.

Medieval period
Medieval maps — Southern Continent drawn
Mapmakers begin drawing Terra Australis Incognita, a vast unknown southern land.

1500s
Dieppe maps — "Java la Grande"
French cartographers depict a large southern land that may resemble Australia.

1606
Dutch sight Australia
Dutch explorers make the first recorded European contact with Australia.

1770
Captain Cook maps east coast
James Cook charts Australia's east coast and claims New South Wales.

From idea to discovery

Theory → Imagination → Mapping → Exploration → Australia revealed

Connecting Terra Australis chapters

Ancient wisdom and early maps
Dutch maps and explorers
Lieutenant James Cook
The Maccassan traders

Ancient speculation

Source: p2 - 24 Jan 1938 - The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 - 1954) - Trove

The idea of a southern continent existed 1,500+ years before Australia was mapped.

Aristotle was one of several ancient writers who held that the known world of Europe was but a part of the whole world, believing that a band of sea divided the European continent from another, situated in a southern sea. Strabo (BC 50) refers to "a great land, twenty days' sail in a south-east direction from India".

In De Chorographia, the only surviving work by Roman geographer Pomponius Mela (written around AD 43–50), the world is described as being divided into distinct climatic zones and suggests that:

The known world (Europe, Asia, North Africa) existed in the northern hemisphere
A separate southern landmass existed in the southern hemisphere

This southern region was called Alter Orbis ("The Other World"). Mela believed the Earth was spherical and the equatorial region was too hot to cross. Therefore, a separate southern world must exist; people might live there — but Europeans could not reach them. This idea became known as the Antipodes theory — the belief that people lived on the opposite side of the Earth.

Map based on Pomponius Mela's "Alter Orbis".

Why this is important

Mela's idea helped shape later beliefs about a Great Southern Continent or Terra Australis Incognita (Unknown Southern Land) and this concept influenced later geographers including Ptolemy, Medieval mapmakers, Renaissance cartographers and Dieppe mapmakers in the 1500s.

Medieval map showing 'Terra Australis' as the southern half of the world. Source: Wikipedia.

Medieval maps show 'Terra Australis'

One of the earliest maps of the world, sketched in the eighth century, includes references to a southern continent. From this time onward, the idea of a great southern land appeared in many subsequent maps.

A later map dated 1542, now held in the British Museum, is particularly significant. It appears to show outlines resembling the northern and eastern coastlines of Australia, with bays and coastal indentations carefully drawn. This map forms part of A Boke of Idrography, created by Johne Rotz in 1542.

1500s Dieppe Maps — "Java la Grande"

The sixteenth-century French map pictured below shows a large southern landmass labelled Java la Grande. Some historians believe the coastline resembles northern Australia, leading to suggestions that parts of Australia may have been mapped before the first recorded Dutch sightings in 1606. This map is associated with Johne Rotz’s Boke of Idrography (1542) and forms part of the early European search for the Great Southern Continent.

This image is from the sixteenth-century Dieppe Maps and represents Java la Grande, a southern landmass that some historians believe may resemble northern Australia.
Courtesy: State Library of NSW.

Early European exploration of the Southern Continent

One of the earliest claims of European contact with Australia comes from Binot Paulmier de Gonneville, a French navigator who sailed from France in 1503. After rounding the Cape of Good Hope, his ship was wrecked on an unknown land later identified by some historians as northern Australia. He returned to France two years later and recorded his journey, but no further exploration followed.

During this period, Spain, Portugal, Holland and England were competing to discover new lands. Voyagers often kept discoveries secret, and many records were later lost, destroyed, or captured, making early exploration difficult to trace.

A more detailed record appears in a Spanish “Memorial” written by Dr Juan Luis Arias after 1609, which described earlier discoveries and encouraged Spain to claim southern lands before rival nations.

The Memorial also described important Spanish voyages:

Juan Fernandez (1576) — may have reached lands later identified as New Zealand
Pedro Fernandez de Quiros (1605) — explored the Pacific and possibly reached New Guinea
Luis Vaez de Torres (1606) — sailed along the north coast of Australia and through what is now Torres Strait

Because Spain kept discoveries secret, these voyages were little known at the time. Later explorers such as Tasman, Dampier and Cook followed routes that may already have been partly understood from these earlier voyages.

Why This Is Important

These accounts suggest:

Europeans may have reached Australia before the Dutch in 1606
Spanish exploration of the Pacific was earlier and more extensive than often recognised
Many early discoveries were kept secret or lost, delaying wider knowledge of Australia