Jacob Le Maire (c. 1585 - 1616) was a Dutch mariner who circumnavigated the Earth in 1615 and 1616. The strait between Tierra del Fuego on the Southern tip of South America and Isla de los Estados was named the Le Maire Strait in his honour, though controversially by Le Maire himself. He and his fellow sailors had no clue of the extent of the land on the south side of the strait. They called this unseen land Staten Land.
In 1642-43, when Abel Tasman sailed along part of the western shores of what was to be called eventually New Zealand, Tasman speculated that it might be joined to Le Maire's Staten Land and accordingly named it Staten Landt.
In 1644 Tasman sailed along the north coast of Australia and his Dutch masters based in Batavia (Jakarta) in the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) compiled a composite map that shows large portions of Australia known after Dutch discoveries, including the (now) Tasmanian and continental north coast. This was called "Compagnis Niev Nederland" ( "Company's New Netherland", the "Company" being the Dutch East India Company). The name became "Nieuw Holland", meaning New Holland, became a standard appellation for the Australian continent. Soon after the name "Zeelandia Nova" - the Latin equivalent of the Dutch "Nieuw Zeeland" and the English "New Zealand" - appeared for the parts of New Zealand discovered by Tasman. (Zeeland is a maritime province in The Netherlands. So Nieuw Zeeland and in due course its English equivalent replaced the unsatisfactory Staten Land. Presumably, Tasman believed he had reached "Staten Land" but was soon disabused of this belief by his masters within a year.
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