Australasia is a subregion of Oceania , comprising Australia , New Zealand (overlapping with Polynesia ), and sometimes including New Guinea and surrounding islands (overlapping with Melanesia ). The term is used in a number of different contexts, including geopolitically , physiogeographically , philologically , and ecologically , where the term covers several slightly different but related regions.
6-525: Charles de Brosses coined the term (as French Australasie ) in Histoire des navigations aux terres australes (1756). He derived it from the Latin for "south of Asia " and differentiated the area from Polynesia (to the east) and the southeast Pacific ( Magellanica ). In the late 19th century, the term Australasia was used in reference to the "Australasian colonies". In this sense it related specifically to
12-726: The Académie française in 1770. Because he opposed the absolute power of the king, he was exiled twice, in 1744 and 1771. He wrote numerous academic papers on topics concerning ancient history and language, some of which were used by Denis Diderot and D'Alembert in the Encyclopédie (1751-1765). De Brosses published five books: De Brosses is also remembered for his posthumously published letters: The first English translation of Du culte des dieux fétiches will be published in The Returns of Fetishism: Charles De Brosses and
18-707: The "Indo-Pacific" region. The New Zealand Oxford Dictionary gives two meanings of "Australasia". One, especially in Australian use, is "Australia, New Zealand, New Guinea , and the neighbouring islands of the Pacific". The other, especially in New Zealand use, is just Australia and New Zealand. Two Merriam-Webster dictionaries online ( Collegiate and Unabridged ) define Australasia as "Australia, New Zealand, and Melanesia ". The American Heritage Dictionary online recognizes two senses in use: one more precise and
24-516: The British colonies south of Asia: New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania, Western Australia, Victoria (i.e., the Australian colonies) and New Zealand. Australasia found continued geopolitical attention in the early 20th century. Historian Hansong Li finds that against the backdrop of British colonialism, German geopoliticians considered "Australasia" as a counterweight to the former German South Sea Edge (Südseerand), both of which form
30-413: The other broader, loosely covering all of Oceania . 28°06′32″S 146°18′00″E / 28.10889°S 146.30000°E / -28.10889; 146.30000 Charles de Brosses Charles de Brosses ( French: [də bʁɔs] ), comte de Tournay, baron de Montfalcon, seigneur de Vezins et de Prevessin (7 February 1709 – 7 May 1777), was a French scholar of the 18th century. He
36-547: Was president of the parliament of his hometown Dijon from 1741, a member of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres from 1746, and a member of the Académie des Sciences, Arts et Belles-Lettres de Dijon from 1761. He was a close friend of Georges-Louis Leclerc de Buffon , the naturalist who wrote the Histoire Naturelle , and a personal enemy of Voltaire , the famous philosopher, who barred his entry in
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