who first discovered australia
The first people to “discover” Australia were the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples , who arrived on the continent at least 50,000–65,000 years ago and lived there long before any Europeans arrived.
Who “discovered” Australia first?
- First inhabitants : Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islanders were the original discoverers and settlers of the land, crossing from what is now Southeast Asia via land bridges and short sea crossings during the last Ice Age.
- First Europeans : The first recorded European landing on the Australian mainland was by Dutch navigator Willem Janszoon in 1606 , when he sailed the ship Duyfken and landed on the western side of Cape York Peninsula in the Gulf of Carpentaria.
Later European explorers
- Spanish : Around the same time, Spanish‑backed navigator Luís Vaz de Torres sailed through what is now called Torres Strait , proving New Guinea was separate from any southern landmass.
- British : Captain James Cook is often popularly said to have “discovered” Australia, but he was actually the first European to chart and claim the eastern coast in 1770 , naming it New South Wales for Britain.
Quick comparison of key figures
Person / group| Role in “discovering” Australia| When / what they did
---|---|---
Aboriginal and Torres Strait peoples| First humans on the continent| Arrived
50,000–65,000+ years ago ; lived across the land long before Europeans. 39
Willem Janszoon (Dutch)| First recorded European landfall| 1606 , landed
on Cape York Peninsula, charted part of the northern coast. 137
Luís Vaz de Torres (Spanish‑backed)| First European through Torres Strait|
1606 , sailed between New Guinea and the Australian mainland. 17
James Cook (British)| First European to map and claim the east coast| 1770
, charted the eastern coastline and claimed it for Britain. 3910
So if you mean “who first discovered Australia” in the human sense , the answer is Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples ; if you mean first recorded European discovery , it is Willem Janszoon in 1606.
Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.