text: why is australia so called? this question was posed to me in 1960. i am still to get an answer. the name australia is derived from the latin australis, meaning of the south. legends of an "unknown land of the south" (terra australis incognita) date back to the roman times and were commonplace in mediaeval geography, but they were not based on any actual knowledge of the continent. the dutch adjectival form australische ("australian", in the sense of "southern") was used by dutch officials in batavia to refer to the newly discovered land to the south as early as 1638. the first use of the word "australia" in english was a 1693 translation of les aventures de jacques sadeur dans la découverte et le voyage de la terre australe, a 1692 french novel by gabriel de foigny under the pen name jacques sadeur. alexander dalrymple then used it in an historical collection of voyages and discoveries in the south pacific ocean, published in 1771. he used the term to refer to the entire south pacific region, not specifically to the australian continent. in 1793, george shaw and sir james smith published zoology and botany of new holland, in which they wrote of "the vast island, or rather continent, of australia, australasia or new holland."