Jan 15, 2018
Terra Australis is Latin for the South Land. Although if I type Latin for south into Google translate the response is ‘Meridianam’. Meridian comes from the Latin ‘meridies’ for midday…the sun crosses a given Meridian halfway between sunrise and sunset.
Aristotle and Ptolemy both posited that there must be a significant southern continent for no better reason than it seemed like the land mass around the globe should be fairly balanced.
Terra Australis started appearing on maps and globes in the 1500s but mostly imagined as an exaggerated Antartica (which would not be mapped until the 1820s).