Terra Australis facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Terra Australis |
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1570 map by Abraham Ortelius depicting "Terra Australis Nondum Cognita" as a large continent on the bottom of the map and also an Arctic continent
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| Type | Hypothetical continent |
| Notable locations | Patalis |
Terra Australis was a hypothetical continent which appeared on maps between the 15th and 18th centuries.
Since antiquity people believed that there might be a big, unknown land in the southern part of the world. They called this imaginary continent "Terra Australis", which means "Southern Land" in Latin. People thought it had to be there to balance out all the land in the northern part of the world.
In the early 1800s, a British explorer named Matthew Flinders set out on a big adventure. He later wrote a book about his travels called "A Voyage to Terra Australis". Flinders realized that the land he had explored, which we now call Australia, was probably the same place that people had been calling Terra Australis for centuries. He thought it was unlikely that there was any other big land mass even further south.
It wasn't until many years later that people finally discovered the real southern land, which we now know as Antarctica. By that time, the name "Australia" had stuck, and the mysterious Terra Australis was mostly forgotten.
Origins of Terra Australis
Aristotle once wondered if there was a land in the southern part of the world, just like the land near the North Pole. This idea was later picked up by Ptolemy, a famous thinker from the 2nd century AD. He thought that the Indian Ocean was surrounded by land to the south and believed there should be land in the Southern Hemisphere to balance out the Northern Hemisphere.
The idea of a southern land, called "Terra Australis," was often mentioned in medieval maps, even though nobody had ever seen it. Ptolemy’s maps didn’t actually show this continent, but they suggested that Africa might stretch all the way to the South Pole and that the Indian Ocean could be completely surrounded by land.
Many Christian scholars also thought there might be land beyond the southern seas, but they debated whether anyone could live there.
The first globe to show Terra Australis was made by Johannes Schöner in 1523, and he described it as a newly discovered place that wasn’t fully explored yet. He wrote that this land was home to friendly people who lived simple lives and respected their elders.
In 1533, Schöner referred to this continent as "Brasiliae Australis" in his writings. He imagined it as a vast region far south shaped like a ring. His ideas influenced many other mapmakers, including Oronce Fine and Gerardus Mercator, who continued to draw maps showing this mysterious southern continent.
Over time, explorers like Ferdinand Magellan and Captain James Cook set out to find this mysterious land. Although they didn’t find Terra Australis as it was imagined, their journeys led to the discovery of places like Tierra del Fuego, New Zealand and Australia.
Over the centuries the idea of Terra Australis gradually lost its hold. In 1814, Matthew Flinders published the book A Voyage to Terra Australis. Flinders had concluded that the Terra Australis as hypothesized by Aristotle and Ptolemy did not exist, so he wanted the name applied to what he saw as the next best thing: "Australia". He wrote:
There is no probability, that any other detached body of land, of nearly equal extent, will ever be found in a more southern latitude; the name Terra Australis will, therefore, remain descriptive of the geographical importance of this country, and of its situation on the globe: it has antiquity to recommend it; and, having no reference to either of the two claiming nations, appears to be less objectionable than any other which could have been selected.
...with the accompanying note at the bottom of the page:
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 an assimilation to the names of the other great portions of the earth.
His conclusion would soon be revealed as a mistake, but by that time the name had stuck.
Antarctica
Antarctica was finally sighted in the hypothetical area of Terra Australis in 1820. The extent of Terra Australis was finally determined, also proving the Southern Hemisphere has much less land than the Northern. Terra Australis proved to consist of only two small continents: Antarctica and Australia.
See also
In Spanish: Terra Australis para niños
