Shaping Australia

We are proud to own an important collection of maps recording the European discovery of Australia’s coastline. Europeans imagined land in the Southern Hemisphere, referred to as Terra Australis Incognita, the Unknown Southland, long before it was seen by explorers. The idea of this unknown mass gradually changed as more land was charted and the real shape of the Australian continent began to emerge. The maps presented here show the story of the discovery of Australia as seen through the eyes of European cartographers, from early imaginary maps through to 1814 when Flinders documented his circumnavigation of Australia.