Dutch Cartographers

The Dutch East India Company (VOC) first encountered and mapped the unknown Australian coastline along 200 kilometers the West coast of Cape York Peninsular, on the Duyfken voyage of 1606. By 1644, after numerous contacts by Dutch mariners, Abel Tasman had almost completed the task, with only the East and South coasts left to be charted.

These coastlines are based on seventeenth century Dutch encounters with the Australian coast. For example, in the north is Terre d’Arnems, in reference to the Arnhem, a Dutch East India ship, which sighted the area in 1623. To the North West is Terre de Wit, which recalls Gerrit Frederikszoon de Witt, captain of the Vianen, who sighted and charted part of the coast in 1628. On the West coast is Terre d’Endracht. The Endracht was the second recorded European ship to contact Australia (1616) skippered by Dirk Harthog. Terre de Leuvin is named for the Leeuwin, whose crew charted some of the southwest coastline in 1622. Terre de Nuits is named for Pieter Nuyts, a Dutch navigator who commanded the Gulden Zeepaert along the southern coast in 1627.

Significantly the question of what lay between the mainland and New Guinea was still open.  This was a holdover from a century of maps that exaggerated the size of New Guinea and no reports of a strait or passage. In reality, Luís Vaz de Torres, who sailed with Pedro Fernandes de Quiros in 1605, had passed through the straits between New Guinea and Australia. However, the Spanish had suppressed his report in the hopes of maintaining power via geographic secrecy and the Strait was only added to maps when Cook sailed through it from East to West in 1770.

The 1663 chart by Thevenot (above) shows the extend of the Australian coastline charted by the Dutch.