The strange history of Australia's geographic divisions

[HansV]

See Australia history.gif

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[Jezza]

Very interesting.......but then 7th January 2011 England retain the Ashes

[Don Wells]

I didn't see any mention of the rabbit fence in there.

[JohnH]

Gosh ...what a strange collection. I did not know about most of those name changes. I wonder what is coming next?

One day the Northern Territory will get the status of a State...that might need a name change.

New South Wales (where I grew up) is a mystery name..Is it supposed to resemble South Wales? Or is it the new Wales of the south?

[ChrisGreaves]

See Australia history.gif

Nice one Hans. Thanks.
"New Holland", of course, because the foolhardy Dutch used to round the cape of Good Hope on their way to the (then) Dutch East Indies and with their predilection to "always knowing everything and the best way to do it" used to hop onto the winds known as The Roaring Forties which encircle the south polar regions.

The Roaring Forties took them like a sub-sonic jet eastwards.
Page 4 of the manual said "Hang a left when you see the coastline of (what was to become) Western Australia⁽¹⁾". From years distant you can almost hear the screech of the tyres as they made a sharp left to travel northwards up the coast.

Except for the ones who failed to see the reefs, and drove their wooden ships onto those reefs, mainly perishing, for the reefs and the low islands were without water, and were many miles from the coast.
Which was also pretty well without water.

A close look at the coast will show many Dutch place names⁽²⁾. School children grow up on a history diet of "Dirk Hartog's Plate" and "Houtman's Abrolohos".

⁽¹⁾ A bit like today's trucker's directions to get to San Diego from Toronto: "Take the Big Road and hang a left when you see water".

⁽²⁾ See "Dutch place names"

[HansV]

Interesting - "The first recorded European place name is that of Cape Keerweer in Queensland named by Willem Janszoon in his voyage on Duyfken in March 1606". "Keerweer" roughly means "Go back" or "Return" in Dutch

[ChrisGreaves]

Very interesting.......but then 7th January 2011 England retain the Ashes

I thought we were supposed to avoid discussions of sex and religion in here.

[ChrisGreaves]

... in Queensland named by Willem Janszoon in his voyage on Duyfken ...

I know.
I know.
The Dutch pop up everywhere.
And they always seem to know more about anything than anyone else ...
(My close friend Betty was born in Holland but decamped to Canada at the age of 8 months. Great EXPLORERS, the Dutch ...)

[ChrisGreaves]

See ...

While we are on the subject of Australia, here is the ABC's crowdsourced map