History of Australia (1606–1787)

The European exploration of Australia was the exploration of Australia by Europeans or white explorers, encompassing several waves of seafarers and land explorers. Dutch navigators were the first Europeans known to have explored and mapped the Australian coastline. The first documented encounter was that of Dutch navigator Willem Janszoon, in 1606. Dutch seafarers also visited the west and north coasts of the continent, as did French explorers.

The most famous expedition was that of Royal Navy Lieutenant (later Captain) James Cook 164 years after the Janszoon's sighting, 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.

The French navigator Binot Paulmier de Gonneville claimed to have landed at a land he described as "east of the Cape of Good Hope" in 1504, after being blown off course. For some time it had been thought he discovered Australia, but the place he landed has now been shown to be Brazil (which is north-west of the Cape).

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