.
Australia (from the Latin. Austrālis - "southern"), the official
form is the Australian Union or the Commonwealth of Australia - a
state in the Southern Hemisphere that occupies the continent of the
same name, the island of Tasmania and several other islands of the
Indian and Pacific Oceans; It is the sixth largest country in the
world. East Timor, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea are located north
of the Australian Union, Vanuatu, New Caledonia and the Solomon
Islands to the northeast, and New Zealand to the southeast. The
shortest distance between the main island of Papua New Guinea and
the mainland of the Australian Union is only 145 km, and the
distance from the Australian island of Boigu to Papua New Guinea is
only 5 km. The population at December 31, 2018 was estimated at
25,180,200 people, most of whom live in cities on the east coast.
Australia is one of the developed countries, being the
thirteenth largest economy in the world, and has the sixth place in
the world in terms of GDP per capita. Australia's military spending
is the twelfth largest in the world. With the second largest human
development index, Australia ranks high in many areas, such as
quality of life, health, education, economic freedom, protection of
civil liberties and political rights. Australia is a member of the
G20, OECD, WTO, APEC, UN, Commonwealth of Nations, ANZUS and the
Pacific Islands Forum.
The term "Australia" comes from lat. austrālis ("southern"). In
colloquial speech of Australians, the word Oz is used to refer to
Australia. The word Aussie is used to refer to the adjective
"Australian" by Australians.
Legends about the Unknown
Southern Land (Latin Terra Australis Incognita) - “unknown land in
the south” - date back to the times of the Roman Empire and were a
common occurrence in medieval geography, despite the fact that they
were not based on any knowledge about the continent itself.
The earliest documented record of the use of the word “Australia” in
English was written in 1625, “Information about Australia del
Espiritu Santo, written by Master Hulklight” (English A note of
Australia del Espíritu Santo, written by Master Hakluyt) and
published by Samuel Pourchas at Hakluytus Posthumus, where the
Spanish name Australia del Espiritu Santo (Spanish: Australia del
Espíritu Santo), given to an island in the New Hebrides archipelago,
was distorted to “Australia”. The adjective "Australische" was also
used by Dutch officials in Batavia (modern Jakarta) to refer to all
of the southern lands newly discovered since 1638. The word
"Australia" was used in the English-translated book of the French
utopian writer Gabriel de Fouagni "The Adventures of Jacques Sader,
his journey and discovery of the Astral Earth" (French Les Aventures
de Jacques Sadeur dans la Découverte et le Voyage de la Terre
Australe; 1676). For the entire South Pacific, this term is used by
Alexander Dalrymple, a Scottish geographer, in his book An
Historical Collection of Voyages and Discoveries in the South
Pacific Ocean; 1771; . At the end of the 18th century, the term was
used by botanists George Shaw and James Edward Smith to refer to the
Australian continent in their book Zoology and Botany of New Holland
(English Zoology and Botany of New Holland; 1793), as well as on a
1799 map belonging to James Wilson .