Talk:Australasia

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Flag
Portal
 Australasia is within the scope of WikiProject Australia, which aims to improve Wikipedia's coverage of Australia and Australia-related topics. If you would like to participate, visit the project page.
Start This article has been rated as start-class on the quality scale.
High This article has been rated as high-importance on the importance scale.
This article is supported by WikiProject Australian places.
Assessment comments
Flag Australasia is part of WikiProject New Zealand, which aims to improve Wikipedia's coverage of New Zealand and New Zealand-related topics. If you would like to participate, visit the project page.
Start This article has been rated as start-Class on the quality scale.
??? This article has not yet received a rating on the importance scale.
Assessment comments

Contents

[edit] Latin meaning

I must take issue with the replaced statement that "Australia" is Latin for South Asia. In fact it derives from the name originally given it by 15th and 16th century map makers, who called it "Terra Australis Icognica" i.e. the Unknown Southland"

The claim isn't about Australia but Australasia. Does that work for you? —rodii 03:10, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Australasia

I'd always thought of Australasia as meanign only Autralia and New Zealand. When Australia was considering federation, New Zealnd delegates attended several of our constitutional conventions and New Zealnd has the right to join the federation at any time.

In New Zealand - or at least this part of it (southern South Island), "Australasia" generally means Australia or Australia and Papua New Guinea. I don't know of anyone in this part of New Zealand who uses the term to include NZ. (See comment in the article about Oceania). Australia is a continent, so how could it simultaneously be part of a larger continent?Grutness 02:30, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I've never heard of anybody thinking "Australasia" didn't mean NZ too.

The term has always meant NZ and Australia. I've never understood it to mean Papua New Guinea or any other countries. And yes I live in the south of South Island of NZ.

I think both this discussion and the Oceania clearly establishes the fact that there is disagreement about whether in fact New Zealanders consider themselves part of Australasia, etc. Rather than arguing about who's right, does anyone have any actual evidence for either side? —rodii 03:10, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

The statement The term is unpopular in New Zealand because it is seen to emphasize Australia and ... instead, the term Oceania is preferred doesn't seem credible. I've never met a New Zealander who objected to Australasia and/or used the term Oceania. I suggest that this sentence be removed pending some evidence of accuracy. --203.173.49.138 14:55, 11 March 2006 (UTC)
The biological and geographical evidence (as duely indicated in the article) is overwhelmingly abundant. That's what Australasia is primarily: a bio-geographical region. What the term is taken to mean culturally or politically may well be a different thing. However, any such definition which would exclude NZ would not only fly in the face of biology and geography but also be of so little use as to be hardly worth proposing. The article doesn't say that Australasia is a continent. It may make more biological and geographic sense to consider Australasia to be a continent. However, tradition has it that Australia is the continent and Australasia is a greater region including Australia. Jimp 12Oct05

What is the difference between Oceania and Australasia? If there is one, this article should explain the difference. -Bonus Onus 14 November 2005

Australasia is equivalent to the usage of the word Europe. Europe includes Great Britain (a separate island from continental Europe as such), but is still used, in the sense of a word, much as a contintental title. Therefore, Australasia is a continent title for Australia and New Zealand. As far as I was aware, it did not include other islands. Oceania may include other islands, but is not an established geographical label for the same thing. - Paul Farquharson

[edit] Proposed merge (with Oceania)

Hi, in order to have the merge discussions at one place, I suggest that all discussions about the proposed merge take place at Talk:Oceania so that continuity is not lost (else, we would end up with discussions on both talkpages making it difficult to follow who is saying what). --Gurubrahma 11:25, 15 November 2005 (UTC)


Australia, New Zealand and the islands like Fiji, New Caledonia, Vanuatu etc is apart of the Oceania/Pacific regein. The Continent in that part is Australia, the only countries in the Continent Australia is the country Australia. Australia is NOT apart of asia. Papua New guinea was apart of Indonesia which is asian so Pap new guinea is ASIAN AND NOT AUSTRALIAN! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by DarthCud (talk • contribs) .

Consider this. What makes it asian? That's nothing more than an arbitrary classification imposed by human beings... just like the classification that makes it apart of the arbitrary geographic classification of Australasia. Far Queue 01:22, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] map

Is all of Indonesia included under Australasia in anyone's definition, as the map shows? kwami 02:23, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Not by any definition I'd consider credible. That is an utterly horrible map (and not the only one, as I've today discovered). At most, and only in a geological and ecological interpretation, Flores and the Moluccas (and a couple other islands) may be considered part of an Australasia ecozone. Australasia is primarily and most commonly understood as a geopolitical/cultural concept encompassing Australia and New Zealand (and more broadly PNG and Fiji). Image:Melanesia.png is incorrect also: Sulawesi is not Melanesian. Moreover, Image:LocationOceania.png is incorrect too by my understanding of what Oceania is. I think there needs to be a clear separation between the geopolitical concept of Australasia, and the evolutionary/ecological one covered in Australasia ecozone.--cj | talk 10:53, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Britannica 1911

The good thing about the original text is that it pre-dates political correctness and hyper-sensitivity of various nations in the region who view geographical and other terms as insulting for not supporting current political borders. Apart from that it is just the opinion of the authors at the time:

"Australasia, a term used by English geographers in a sense nearly synonymous with the Oceania of continental writers. It thus comprises all the insular groups which extend almost continuously from the south-eastern extremity of Asia to more than half-way across the Pacific. Its chief divisions are Malaysia with the Philippines; Australia with Tasmania and New Zealand; Melanesia, that is, New Guinea, New Britain, New Ireland, Admiralty, the Solomons, New Hebrides, Santa Cruz, Fiji, Loyalties and New Caledonia; Micronesia, that is, the Ladrones, Pelew and Carolines, with the Marshall and Gilbert groups; lastly, Polynesia, that is, Samoa, Tonga, Cook, Tahiti, the Marquesas, Ellice, Hawaii and all intervening clusters.

The term is so far justified in that it harmonizes better than Oceania did with the names of the other continents, and also embodies the two essential facts that it is a south-eastern extension of Asia, and that its central and most important division is the great island-continent of Australia. In a more restricted sense the term Australasia corresponds to the large division including Australia, Tasmania and New Zealand."58.107.15.245 12:49, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Really? I'd say it shows an out-dated UK-centric view of the terminology and one that is no longer taught in the UK I might add. It is also inacurate. In 1911 Tasmania was as much a part of Australia as it is now. It had been since 1901. The author clearly did not know this Far Queue 01:20, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Really? I live in New Zealand, and the above definition dovetails nicely with what most New Zealanders believe. We are taught at school that the term "Australasia" refers to a continent comprising Australia, New Zealand, New Guinea and the surrounding islands. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.141.88.124 (talk) 12:15, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Anthropology

I am not comfortable with the scentence, "Anthropologists, although disagreeing on details, generally support theories that call for a Southeastern Asian origin of indigenous island peoples in Australasia and neighboring subregions." - There is no real link between melanesians, aborgines and Polynesians such as the Maori, other than the very broad common starting point for these different people's migrations. Does this scentence add any useful information? Winstonwolfe 07:53, 28 May 2007 (UTC)