Why Australia's name is Australia ?

"Australia"一字來自拉丁文Australis, 即是指南
The name "Australia" is derived from the Latin Australis, meaning "of the South". Legends of an "unknown land of the south" (terra australis incognita) dating back to Roman times were commonplace in mediæval geography, but were based on no actual knowledge of the continent. The first use of the word "Australia" in English was in 1625 — the words "A note of Australia del Espiritu Santo, written by Master Hakluyt", published by Samuel Purchas in Hakluytus Posthumus. The Dutch adjectival form Australische was used by Dutch officials in Batavia to refer to the newly discovered land to the south in 1638. "Australia" was used in 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 (1771), to refer to the entire South Pacific region. 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."





圖片參考：http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b9/Flag_of_Australia.svg/125px-Flag_of_Australia.svg.png


圖片參考：http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/7/78/Australian_Coat_of_Arms.png/85px-Australian_Coat_of_Arms.png

The name "Australia" was popularised by the 1814 work A Voyage to Terra Australis by the navigator Matthew Flinders, the first recorded person to circumnavigate Australia. Despite its title, which reflected the view of the British Admiralty, Flinders used the word "Australia" in the book, which was widely read and gave the term general currency. Governor Lachlan Macquarie of New South Wales subsequently used the word in his dispatches to England, and in 1817 recommended that it be officially adopted. In 1824, the Admiralty agreed that the continent should be known officially as "Australia".
The word "Australia" in Australian English is pronounced /ə.ˈstɹæɪ.ljə, -liː.ə, -jə/.