The maritime European exploration of Australia consisted of several waves of European seafarers who sailed the edges of the Australian continent. 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.
Jacob Le Maire was a Belgian mariner who circumnavigated the earth in 1615 and 1616. The strait between Tierra del Fuego and Isla de los Estados was named the Le Maire Strait in his honor, though not without controversy. It was Le Maire himself who proposed to the council aboard Eendracht that the new passage should be called by his name and the council unanimously agreed with Le Maire. The author or authors of The Relation took Eendracht captain Schouten's side by proclaiming:
Dirk Hartog was a 17th-century Dutch sailor and explorer. Dirk Hartog's expedition was the second European group to land in Australia and the first to leave behind an artefact to record his visit, the Hartog Plate. His name is sometimes alternatively spelled Dirck Hartog or Dierick Hartochszch. Ernest Giles referred to him as Theodoric Hartog. The Western Australian island Dirk Hartog Island is named after Hartog.
Willem Janszoon, sometimes abbreviated to Willem Jansz., was a Dutch navigator and colonial governor. Janszoon served in the Dutch East Indies in the periods 1603–1611 and 1612–1616, including as governor of Fort Henricus on the island of Solor. During his voyage of 1605–1606, he became the first European known to have seen the coast of Australia.
Cape Leeuwin is the most south-westerly mainland point of the Australian continent, in the state of Western Australia.
Augusta is a town on the south-west coast of Western Australia, where the Blackwood River emerges into Flinders Bay. It is the nearest town to Cape Leeuwin, on the furthest southwest corner of the Australian continent. In the 2001 census it had a population of 1,091; by 2016 the population of the town was 1,109.
The Eendracht was an early 17th century Dutch wooden-hulled 700 tonne East Indiaman, launched in 1615 in the service of the Dutch East India Company (VOC). Its Dutch name means "concord", "unity" or "union", and was a common name given to Dutch ships of the period, from the motto of the Republic: Concordia res parvae crescunt . The ship was captained by Dirk Hartog when he made the second recorded landfall by a European on Australian soil, in 1616.
The Ashburton River is located within the Pilbara region of Western Australia.
Eendrachtsland or Eendraghtsland was derived from the Dutch het Landt van d'Eendracht or Land van de Eendracht and was one of the earliest names given by Europeans to Australia, being in use for 28 years, from 1616 until 1644.
Tryal Rocks, sometimes spelled Trial Rocks or Tryall Rocks, formerly known as Ritchie's Reef or Greyhound's Shoal, is a reef of rock located in the Indian Ocean off the northwest coast of Australia, 14 kilometres (8.7 mi) northwest of the outer edge of the Montebello Islands group. It is named for the Tryall, the first known shipwreck in Australian waters, which sunk after striking the then-uncharted rocks in 1622. Described as "the theme and dread of every voyager to the eastern islands", their location was sought for over three centuries before finally being determined in 1969.
Willem Janszoon captained the first recorded European landing on the Australian continent in 1606, sailing from Bantam, Java, in the Duyfken. As an employee of the Dutch East India Company, Janszoon had been instructed to explore the coast of New Guinea in search of economic opportunities. He had originally arrived in the Dutch East Indies from the Netherlands in 1598, and became an officer of the VOC on its establishment in 1602.
Hessel Gerritsz was a Dutch engraver, cartographer, and publisher. He was one of the notable figures in the Golden Age of Netherlandish cartography. Despite strong competition, he is considered by some "unquestionably the chief Dutch cartographer of the 17th century".
Fortuyn was a ship owned by the Chamber of Amsterdam of the Dutch East India Company that was lost on its maiden voyage in 1723. It set sail for Batavia from Texel in the Netherlands on 27 September 1723. The ship reached the Cape of Good Hope on 2 January 1724, and continued on its voyage on 18 January. Fortuyn was never seen again and its fate is a matter of speculation.
Caert van't Landt van d'Eendracht is a 1627 map by Hessel Gerritsz. One of the earliest maps of Australia, it shows what little was then known of the west coast, based on a number of voyages beginning with the 1616 voyage of Dirk Hartog, when he named Eendrachtsland after his ship.
The 't Gulden Zeepaert, usually referred to as the Gulden Zeepaert was a ship belonging to the Dutch East India Company (VOC). It sailed along the south coast of Australia from Cape Leeuwin in the south west of Western Australia to the Nuyts Archipelago in South Australia early in 1627.
The Mauritius was an early 17th century Dutch wooden-hulled sailing ship, documented as being in service to the Dutch East India Company between 1618 and 1622.
The Willem River or Willem's River was named during the voyage of the Dutch East India Company ship Mauritius in 1618, under the command of Supercargo Willem Janszoon and captained by Lenaert Jacobszoon, and is one of the few features named on a nautical chart made in 1627.
Three ships of the Dutch East India Company and its pre-companies have been named Leeuwin, including the galleon from which parts of the southwest coastline of Australia were first mapped in March 1622.
This article covers the science, art and industry of cartography by the people of the Low Countries in the early modern period, especially in the early 16th to early 18th centuries. It includes cartography of the Northern Netherlands, Southern Netherlands and Low Countries in general. It also includes Dutch colonial cartography, i.e. cartography in the Dutch overseas world, in the early modern period.
