In 1642 Dutch mariner Abel Tasman made voyages around the Tasman peninsula, which he named Van Diemen’s land, after the Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies, In 1644 he mapped the northwestern edge of the land which became known as New Holland, and then Terra Australis.
A marble mosaic reproduction of Tasman’s map is embedded in the main entrance foyer of the Mitchell Library wing of the State Library of NSW. Tasmania must have seemed like the edge of the world to those from the Old World.