Australia

• Location: New Holland, Terra Australis
• Variant names: Eendrachtsland

The Commonwealth of Australia since 1 January 1901 when the six separate colonies of New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria, and Western Australia were joined in a federation and retitled as states; South Australia was partitioned in 1911, a part being hived off as the Northern Territory and joining the Commonwealth as a 'territory', not a state. Imagining the existence of such a land at the beginning of the 1st millennium, the Greeks called it Terra Australis Incognita 'Unknown Southern Land'. So optimistic were cartographers of the 15th century that some maps bore the name Terra Australis Nondam Incognita 'Southern Land Not Yet Known'. The west coast was eventually discovered by the Dutchman Dirck Hartog in 1616 and named Eendrachtsland after his ship, the Eendracht. After another Dutchman, Abel Tasman^†, had undertaken a second voyage to the area in 1644, the land discovered was renamed New Holland (now Western Australia). Between 1801 and 1803 Matthew Flinders^†, a British naval officer, circumnavigated the entire island, proving that it was a single landmass and calling it on his chart 'Terra Australis or Australia'. 'Australia' was approved by international consent in 1817. Great Britain's claim to Australia followed Captain James Cook's^† voyage in 1770 when New South Wales was annexed. In a referendum on 6 November 1999, a majority of Australians voted to retain the British Queen as head of state rather than alter the constitution to establish Australia as a republic and replace the Queen with a president.

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Australia	australia
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