Who discovered Australia?

AUSTRALIA is famed for its Aboriginal culture, beautiful beaches and killer creatures.

But who discovered the beautiful landscape that we know as Australia?

When was Australia first discovered?

The first documented discovery of Australia took place in 1606, after the Dutch East India Company ship, Duyfken landed on the western side of Cape York Peninsula charting 300km of coastline.

In the same year, another ship from a Spanish expedition sailing in nearby waters landed in New Hebrides, believing it was the fabled southern continent.

However, the Spanish expedition crew unknowingly discovered the archipelago now known as Vanuatu.

However, the 7.692 million km² landmass hosted civilisations dating back tens of thousands of years, as the Aboriginals were believed to have discovered it 50,000 years prior.

Who discovered Australia?

Dutch navigator Willem Janszoon was documented as the first European to discover Australia on February 26, 1606.

There is some evidence that fishermen and traders from Indonesia, India, and China may have visited northern Australia prior to Janszoon's discovery.

Historians have suggested that they may have traded with the local Aborigines for up to 5,000 years before the Dutch discover in the 1600s.

The dingo, which is now known as the wild dog of Australia, is also rumoured to have been introduced to Australia about 5,000 years before.

It's thought that Portuguese sailors reached the island of Timor just 700km from Australia in 1515.

Historians think that they may have sailed along the coastline of Australia but there is no definite proof that anyone documented landing on the country until the following century.

Janszoon didn't realise he had discovered Australia when he landed in 1606 thinking the land was part of New Guinea.

Around 20 years later, another Dutch ship was the second to discover the continent, and on July 4, 1629, the Batavia was shipwrecked near Geraldton, Western Australia.

There was a mutiny, and the remaining crew built a fort to protect themselves, and it was the first structure built by Europeans.

In 1770, the English Lieutenant James Cook sailed to the south Pacific with secret orders from the British to find and eventually colonise the southern continent.

He named the land New Wales before changing it to what is still known as New South Wales.

Captain Cook was also the first to visit the Great Barrier Reef after he crashed into it, almost destroying his ship in the process.

One of the crew members, Joseph Banks, recommended the British return to colonise this new land they claimed Cook had discovered, even though the land was already occupied by the Aborigines.

In 1803 English explorer Matthew Flinders suggested the island should be called Australia, but the name wasn't officially adopted until 1901.