Encyclopedia > Van Diemen's Land

  Article Content

Van Diemen's Land

Van Diemen's Land is the original name for Tasmania, the island state of Australia. It was named in honor of Anthonio van Diemen, Governor General of India for the Dutch East India Company, who sent Abel Tasman out on his voyage of discovery. It was changed in 1856 to honour Tasman, the first European to discover the island, and possibly also to remove the association with the severe penal colony that the original name evoked.



All Wikipedia text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License

 
  Search Encyclopedia

Search over one million articles, find something about almost anything!
 
 
  
  Featured Article
North Lindenhurst, New York

... (6,199.1/mi²). There are 3,883 housing units at an average density of 789.1/km² (2,045.6/mi²). The racial makeup of the town is 88.27% White, 3.90% ...

 
 
 
This page was created in 35.9 ms