The Collaborative International Dictionary
Australasian \Aus`tral*a"sian\, a. Of or pertaining to Australasia; as, Australasian regions. -- n. A native or an inhabitant of Australasia.
Wiktionary
a. Relating to Australia and the its surrounding regions of New Guinea, Indonesia, and the south west Pacific Ocean. n. A native or inhabitant of Australasia.
Wikipedia
Australasian is the adjectival form of Australasia (lit. "South Asia"), a geographical region including Australia, New Zealand, and New Guinea. It may also refer to:
Usage examples of "australasian".
We shall give a few of these, because there may be, in some of them, preserved by tradition, or copied from earlier prototypes, certain features and nomenclature that, with the help of fresh data, will form, at the least, the disjecta membra of a chain of evidence that may throw additional light on ancient geography generally, and on the geography of Australasian regions in particular.
Venetian traveller, visited far Cathay, following somewhat the itinerary of his predecessor, reaching however nearer to Australia than Marco Polo ever did, for, whereas the latter described the Australasian regions only from hearsay, the Franciscan Monk Odoric actually visited Java and some of the islands of the eastern Archipelago.
Besides these obscure passages, there appears to have crept into the text of some of these manuscripts several interpolations, especially in those parts of the narrative that relate to the Australasian regions.
According to the notions of the time however it was not South America that would have been reached, but a continental land which occupied in the maps of the world, as then delineated, the Australasian regions.
After which we shall examine the Australasian regions on this old globe and show how its nomenclature in those parts was handed down, modified, yet was still traceable on the maps of New Holland at a time when Flinders, P.
We give here a reduced facsimile of the Australasian regions on this interesting map.
As far as we have been able to ascertain it is the first cartographical appearance of the term Brasil in the Australasian regions.
But, as both these claims of discovery present sufficient interest to the Australasian student, and are indirectly connected with our subject, we have not dismissed them entirely.
These portolanos or sailing charts are of great interest to the Australasian student, not only because they depict for the first time the Molucca Islands, but also because Java, Bali, Lomboc and Sumbawa are set down on them as distinct and separate islands, whereas on a class of maps a little later in date, on which the Australian Continent is represented, some of those islands are indicated as forming part of the northern shores of Australia.
It shows for the Australasian regions totally different configurations.
In order to show the interesting features of the northern portions of many Australasian islands, and for the purposes of comparison with older and later maps, we give also a more comprehensive sketch map on our adopted projection.
A casoar would of course be called an ostrich, and here we have for the first time a picturesque description of that Australasian bird.
Delmar Morgan, two eminent writers on Australasian maritime discovery.
Otherwise both Drake and Cavendish stood as good a chance as the Dutch of coming in contact with the coasts of Australia, and that fifteen years before the arrival of the Dutch in Australasian waters.
Drake and Cavendish we see that the term Java Major is restricted to Java, whereas in the oldest Australasian charts it is extended to Australia.