The name is first recorded as Austrie marchionibus (Margrave of Austria) on a deed issued by Conrad III to the Klosterneuburg Monastery in 1147. On the Privilegium Minus of 1156, the name of the country is given as marchiam Austriae (March of Austria) and as Austriae ducatum (Duchy of Austria).
Austria was the German-speaking heartland of the Holy Roman Empire (until 1806), the Austrian Empire (until 1867), and the Austro-Hungarian Empire (until 1918).
The Duchy of Austria (German: Herzogtum Österreich) was a medieval principality of the Holy Roman Empire, established in 1156 by the Privilegium Minus, when the Margraviate of Austria (Ostarrîchi) was detached from Bavaria and elevated to a duchy in its own right.
They first organized as a Celtic kingdom referred to by the Romans as Noricum, dating from c. 800 to 400 BC. At the end of the 1st century BC, the lands south of the Danube became part of the Roman Empire, and were incorporated as the Province of Noricum around 40 AD.
Before World War I, Austria-Hungary was the largest political entity in mainland Europe. It spanned almost 700,000 square kilometres and occupied much of central Europe – from the mountainous Tyrol region north of Italy to the fertile plains of Ukraine, to the Transylvanian mountains of eastern Europe.
Given that Austria is much older than Australia, I guess it would be incumbent upon Australia to change its name. It won't however. Australia is derived from the Latin - Terra Australis Incognita. It meant unknown Southern land.
The origins of the names Austria and Australia stem from separate linguistic roots. The name Austria was derived from High German, whereas Australia was taken from Latin. However, both names can trace their roots back to the Proto-Indo-European language.
In late April 1945, the Allied Powers entered Austria and removed the country from the Third German Reich. A provisional Austrian government, led by Karl Renner, declared the country's regained independence in the context of after the fall of Third Reich.
The Habsburgs
From 1867 to 1918, Austria was part of a dual monarchy, the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
Austria was further isolated in 1859 when it fought a war with France and the northern Italian Kingdoms. As a result, Austria was portrayed as an untrustworthy and weak empire. It was left to sort out its issues with the German states on its own.
The major source of tension between Austria-Hungary and Russia was the so-called Eastern Question: what to do about the weakening Ottoman Empire and its rebellious Christian subjects.
The New South Wales Governor Lachlan Macquarie endorsed the name Australia to replace New Holland in a dispatch to the Colonial Office in London in December 1817, and the name came into common local usage.
While Indigenous Australians have inhabited the continent for tens of thousands of years, and traded with nearby islanders, the first documented landing on Australia by a European was in 1606. The Dutch explorer Willem Janszoon landed on the western side of Cape York Peninsula and charted about 300 km of coastline.
James Cook was a British explorer, navigator and cartographer, he reached the south-eastern coast of Australia on 19 April 1770, his expedition became the first recorded Europeans to have encountered Australia's eastern coastline.
The first known landing in Australia by Europeans was in 1606 by Dutch navigator Willem Janszoon on Australia's northern coast. Later that year, Spanish explorer Luís Vaz de Torres sailed through, and navigated, what is now called Torres Strait and associated islands.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are the first peoples of Australia, meaning they were here for thousands of years prior to colonisation.
Indigenous people have lived in Australia more than 65,000 years ago, according to scientific evidence of human occupation1. To put this in perspective, this is ten times older than the ancient Egyptian pyramids.
The islands were settled by different seafaring Melanesian cultures such as the Torres Strait Islanders over 2500 years ago, and cultural interactions continued via this route with the Aboriginal people of northeast Australia.
A coastal town located on the east bank of the mouth of the Tamar River, George Town is Australia's third oldest European settlement and Australia's oldest town.
Aboriginal people are known to have occupied mainland Australia for at least 65,000 years. It is widely accepted that this predates the modern human settlement of Europe and the Americas.
There is no one Aboriginal word that all Aborigines use for Australia; however, today they call Australia, ""Australia"" because that is what it is called today. There are more than 250 aboriginal tribes in Australia. Most of them didn't have a word for ""Australia""; they just named places around them.
Until the early 19th century, Australia was best known as “New Holland”, a name first applied by the Dutch explorer Abel Tasman in 1644 (as Nieuw-Holland) and subsequently anglicized. Terra Australia still saw occasional usage, such as in scientific texts.
The sovereign country Australia, formed in 1901 by the Federation of the six British colonies, is officially known as the Commonwealth of Australia, abbreviated within the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act and the Constitution of Australia to "the Commonwealth".
Germany's Otto von Bismarck saw the alliance as a way to prevent the isolation of Germany and to preserve peace, as Russia would not wage war against both empires.
Austria was part of Nazi Germany from 13 March 1938 (an event known as the Anschluss) until 27 April 1945, when Allied-controlled Austria declared independence from Nazi Germany. Nazi Germany's troops entering Austria in 1938 received the enthusiastic support of most of the population.