European Exploration of Australia

The European exploration of Australia was the exploration of Australia by Europeans or white explorers, encompassing several waves of seafarers and land explorers.

While Australia's territory (originally known as New Holland) never became an actual Dutch settlement or colony, Dutch navigators were the first to undisputedly explore and map Australian coastline. In the 17th century, the Dutch East India Company's navigators and explorers charted almost three-quarters of Australia's coastline, except its east coast. The Dutch ship, Duyfken, led by Willem Janszoon, made the first documented European landing in Australia in 1606.

After the Golden Age of Dutch exploration and discovery, the most famous expedition was that of Royal Navy Lieutenant (later Captain) James Cook who after an assignment to make observations of the 1769 Venus Transit, followed Admiralty instructions to explore the south Pacific for the reported Terra Australis and on 19 April 1770 sighted the south-eastern coast of Australia and became the first recorded European to explore the eastern coastline. Explorers by land and sea continued to survey the continent for some years after settlement.

Some writers have advanced the theory that the Portuguese were the first Europeans to sight Australia in the 1520s.

A number of relics and remains have been interpreted as evidence that the Portuguese reached Australia. The primary evidence advanced to support this theory is the representation of the continent of Jave la Grande, which appears on a series of French world maps, the Dieppe maps, and that may, in part, be based on Portuguese charts. However, most historians do not accept this theory, and the interpretation of the Dieppe maps is highly contentious.

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