Australasia includes Australia, New Guinea, New Zealand and
most of the small islands in eastern Indonesia.
Charles de Brosses, a great seafarer came up with the name in
1756 using the Latin name for south of asia. It is sometimes
used in the northern hemisphere to describe Australia and New
Zealand on their own.
New Zealanders are known to dislike the term, as the name gives
a lot of its structure to Australia and prefer using the name
Oceania, although they often think of this as not including Australia
at all! With the warm pacific shores many of the countries in
the area are temptingly marketed as paradise and one can well
understand why. Tourism is very much a growth industry and travel
to most of the island groups is easy and safe.
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