Is Terra Australis Australia

Answer 1

Terra Australis (also: Terra Australis Incognita (with "incognita" stressed on the second syllable), Latin for "the unknown land of the South"), was a theorized continent appearing on European maps from the 15th to the 18th century. "Auster" was the Latin name for the south wind": "austral" meant "southern" and "terra australis" meant "land of the south". "Australia" is Latin for "Southland". It was introduced by Aristotle. His ideas were later expanded by Ptolemy in the first century AD, who believed that the Indian ocean was enclosed on the south by land, and that the lands of the Northern hemisphere should be balanced by land in the south. During the Renaissance, Ptolemy was the main source of information for European cartographers as new land started to appear on their maps. Although voyages of discovery did sometimes reduce the area where the continent could be found, cartographers held to Aristotle's opinion. Scientists argued for its existence, with such arguments as that there should be a large landmass in the south as a counterweight to the known landmasses in the Northern Hemisphere. Usually the land was shown as a continent around the South Pole, but much larger than the actual Antarctica, spreading far north -- in particular in the Pacific Ocean. New Zealand, first seen by a European (Abel Tasman) in 1642, was regarded by some as a part of the continent, as well as Africa and Australia.