a nation occupying the whole of the Australian continent; Aboriginal tribes are thought to have migrated from southeastern Asia 20,000 years ago; first Europeans were British convicts sent there as a penal colony
"Australia is a vast nation covering the entire Australian continent where Indigenous peoples arrived millennia before the first European convicts established a penal colony."
the smallest continent; between the South Pacific and the Indian Ocean
"Australia is often described as a country that happens to be an entire continent, situated between the South Pacific and the Indian Ocean."
A country in Oceania. Official name: Commonwealth of Australia.
"Australia, officially known as the Commonwealth of Australia, is a vast country located in Oceania."
The name Australia comes from the Latin phrase terra australis incognita, meaning "unknown southern land," which itself derives from auster, the south wind. Although it shares a distant root with Austria, the two words developed different meanings because German retained an older sense of "east" for its related term.