The name Australia began to be used to describe the continent following the publishing of Captain Matthew Flinders’ A Voyage to Terra Australis (published 1814).

For centuries the great landmass thought to exist in the southern hemisphere was named ‘Terra Australis Incognita': the ‘unknown southern land.’

In 1803 Flinders became the first European to circumnavigate the continent and determine that New South Wales and New Holland were part of the same landmass. He called the continent Australia in his manuscript chart of 1804. Flinders wrote, ‘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 as an assimilation to the names of the other great portions of the earth.’

In 1817 the Governor of New South Wales Lachlan Macquarie received a copy of Flinders’ book, and started to use the name Australia in his official correspondence.