Everything about Australasia totally explained
Australasia is a
region of
Oceania:
New Zealand,
Australia,
Papua New Guinea, and neighbouring
islands in the
Pacific Ocean. The term was coined by
Charles de Brosses 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). It is also distinct from
Micronesia (to the northeast).
Human geography
Geopolitically, Australasia is sometimes used as a term for
New Zealand and Australia together, in the absence of another word limited to those two countries. Sometimes Papua New Guinea is encompassed by the term. There are many organizations whose names are prefixed with "(Royal) Australasian Society" that are limited to just
New Zealand and Australia.
In the past, Australasia has been used as a name for combined
Australia/
New Zealand sporting teams. Examples include
tennis between
1905 and
1915, when
New Zealand and Australia combined its best players to compete in the
Davis Cup international tournament (and won it in 1907, 1908, 1909, 1911 and 1914), and at the
Olympic Games of
1908 and
1912. Australasia also competed in the 1911 Festival of Light in London, the precursor of the Commonwealth Games.
In speculative fiction or
counterfactual historical analysis, it's used to describe an
alternate history New Zealand and Australia which agreed to political union at Australian federation in
1901, rather than seeking divergent
British Empire Dominion status in 1901 and
1907 respectively.
Ecological geography
From an
ecological perspective the
Australasia ecozone is a distinct region with a common evolutionary history and a great many unique
flora and
fauna. In this context, Australasia is limited to Australia, New Guinea, and neighbouring islands, including the
Indonesian islands from
Lombok and
Sulawesi eastward. The biological dividing line from
Asia is the
Wallace line –
Borneo and
Bali lie on the western, Asian side.
New Zealand comprises another ecological zone altogether, as it had been isolated from the rest of the world, including the rest of Australasia, for even longer.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Australasia'.
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