Abel Janszoon Tasman (ˈaːbəl ˈjɑnsoʊn ˈtɑsmɐn; 1603–1659) was a Dutch seafarer,
explorerExploration is the act of searching or traveling around a terrain for the purpose of discovery of resources or information. Exploration occurs in all non-sessile animal species, including humans...
, and
merchantA merchant is a businessperson who trades in commodities that were produced by others, in order to earn a profit.Merchants can be one of two types:# A wholesale merchant operates in the chain between producer and retail merchant...
, best known for his voyages of 1642 and 1644 in the service of the VOC (United East India Company). His was the first known European expedition to reach the islands of
Van Diemen's LandVan Diemen's Land was the original name used by most Europeans for the island of Tasmania, now part of Australia. The Dutch explorer Abel Tasman was the first European to land on the shores of Tasmania...
(now
TasmaniaTasmania is an Australian island and state. It is south of the continent, separated by Bass Strait. The state includes the island of Tasmania—the 26th largest island in the world—and the surrounding islands. The state has a population of 507,626 , of whom almost half reside in the greater Hobart...
) and
New ZealandNew Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
and to sight the
FijiFiji , officially the Republic of Fiji , is an island nation in Melanesia in the South Pacific Ocean about northeast of New Zealand's North Island...
islands. His navigator François Visscher, and his merchant Isaack Gilsemans mapped substantial portions of
AustraliaAustralia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
, New Zealand and some
Pacific IslandsThe Pacific Islands comprise 20,000 to 30,000 islands in the Pacific Ocean. The islands are also sometimes collectively called Oceania, although Oceania is sometimes defined as also including Australasia and the Malay Archipelago....
.
First pacific voyage
Abel Tasman was born in 1603 in
LutjegastLutjegast is a village in the Westerkwartier area of Groningen in the Netherlands. It is administered as part of the municipality Grootegast.Lutjegast was the birth place of the explorer Abel Tasman...
in what is now the province of Groningen, the Netherlands; four years later he was back in Amsterdam. Tasman signed on for another ten years and took his wife along to Batavia. In 1639 Tasman was sent as second in command of an exploring expedition in the north Pacific under
Matthijs QuastMatthijs Quast was a Dutch explorer in the seventeenth century. He had made several voyages for the VOC to Japan, China and Siam.-Pacific Expedition:Matthijs Quast has become known for an unsuccessful expedition to the Pacific....
. His fleet included the ships
Engel and
Gracht and reached
Fort ZeelandiaFort Zeelandia was a fortress built over ten years from 1624–1634 by the Dutch Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie, in the town of Anping on the island of Formosa, present day Taiwan, during their 38-year rule over the western part of it...
(Dutch Formosa) and Deshima. In 1642 he signed a friendly trading treaty with the
SultanSultan is a title with several historical meanings. Originally, it was an Arabic language abstract noun meaning "strength", "authority", "rulership", and "dictatorship", derived from the masdar سلطة , meaning "authority" or "power". Later, it came to be used as the title of certain rulers who...
of
PalembangPalembang is the capital city of the South Sumatra province in Indonesia. Palembang is one of the oldest cities in Indonesia, and has a history of being a capital of a maritime empire. Located on the Musi River banks on the east coast of southern Sumatra island, it has an area of 400.61 square...
, Sumatra offering super duper protection for pepper.
In August 1642, the Council of the Indies, consisting of Antonie van Diemen,
Cornelis van der LijnCornelis van der Lijn was Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies from 1646 until 1650.-Early career:Van der Lijn was born in Alkmaar, possibly in 1608. He went, in 1627, as Assistant to Batavia, Dutch East Indies aboard the Wapen van Hoorn. From 1632 to 18 January 1636 he was Accountant-General...
,
Joan MaetsuyckerJoan Maetsuycker was Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies from 1653 to 1678.Maetsuycker studied law in Leuven, and was a lawyer first in The Hague, and later in Amsterdam. From 1636, he lived in the Dutch East Indies...
, Justus Schouten,
Salomon SweersSalomon Sweers was a bookkeeper and a council for the Dutch East India Company.His younger brother was admiral Isaac Sweers employed by the Admiralty of Amsterdam....
, Cornelis Witsen, and Pieter Boreel in Batavia despatched Abel Tasman and Franchoijs Visscher on a voyage of which one of the objects was to obtain knowledge of "all the totally unknown provinces of Beach".
Beach, and Terra Australis
Beach appeared on maps of the time, notably that of
Abraham Orteliusthumb|250px|Abraham Ortelius by [[Peter Paul Rubens]]Abraham Ortelius thumb|250px|Abraham Ortelius by [[Peter Paul Rubens]]Abraham Ortelius (Abraham Ortels) thumb|250px|Abraham Ortelius by [[Peter Paul Rubens]]Abraham Ortelius (Abraham Ortels) (April 14, 1527 – June 28,exile in England to take...
of 1570 and that of Jan Huygen van Linschoten of 1596, as the northernmost part of the southern continent, the
Terra AustralisTerra Australis, Terra Australis Ignota or Terra Australis Incognita was a hypothesized continent appearing on European maps from the 15th to the 18th century...
, along with
Locach. According to
Marco PoloMarco Polo was a Venetian merchant traveler from the Venetian Republic whose travels are recorded in Il Milione, a book which did much to introduce Europeans to Central Asia and China. He learned about trading whilst his father and uncle, Niccolò and Maffeo, travelled through Asia and apparently...
,
Locach was a kingdom where gold was “so plentiful that no none who did not see it could believe it”.
Beach was in fact a mistranscription of
Locach. Locach was Marco Polo’s name for the southern Thai kingdom of Lavo, or Lop Buri, the “city of Lavo”, (ลพบร, after Lavo, the son of
RamaRama or full name Ramachandra is considered to be the seventh avatar of Vishnu in Hinduism, and a king of Ayodhya in ancient Indian...
in
Hindu mythologyHindu religious literature is the large body of traditional narratives related to Hinduism, notably as contained in Sanskrit literature, such as the Sanskrit epics and the Puranas. As such, it is a subset of Nepali and Indian culture...
). In Chinese (
CantoneseCantonese is a dialect spoken primarily in south China.Cantonese may also refer to:* Yue Chinese, the Chinese language that includes Cantonese* Cantonese cuisine, the cuisine of Guangdong province...
), Lavo was pronounced “Lo-huk” (羅斛), from which Marco Polo took his rendition of the name. In the
German cursive scriptKurrent is an old form of German language handwriting based on late medieval cursive writing, also known as Kurrentschrift or Alte Deutsche Schrift...
, “Locach” and “Beach” look similar , and in the 1532 edition of
Marco Polo’s TravelsBooks of the Marvels of the World or Description of the World , also nicknamed Il Milione or Oriente Poliano and commonly called The Travels of Marco Polo, is a 13th-century travelogue written down by Rustichello da Pisa from stories told by Marco Polo, describing the...
his Locach was changed to
Boëach, later shortened to
Beach. They seem to have drawn on the map of the world published in Florence in 1489 by Henricus Martellus, in which
provincia boëach appears as the southern neighbour of
provincia ciamba. Book III of Marco Polo’s
Il Milione described his journey by sea from China to India by way of
ChampaThe kingdom of Champa was an Indianized kingdom that controlled what is now southern and central Vietnam from approximately the 7th century through to 1832.The Cham people are remnants...
(= Southern Vietnam), Java (which he called
Java MajorLa grande isle de Java was, according to Marco Polo, the largest island in the world: his Java Minor was the actual island of Sumatra, which takes its name from the city of Samudera situated on its northern coast....
), Locach and Sumatra (called
Java Minor). After a chapter describing the kingdom of Champa there follows a chapter describing
JavaJava is an island of Indonesia. With a population of 135 million , it is the world's most populous island, and one of the most densely populated regions in the world. It is home to 60% of Indonesia's population. The Indonesian capital city, Jakarta, is in west Java...
(which he did not visit himself). The narrative then resumes, describing the route southward from Champa toward
SumatraSumatra is an island in western Indonesia, westernmost of the Sunda Islands. It is the largest island entirely in Indonesia , and the sixth largest island in the world at 473,481 km2 with a population of 50,365,538...
, but by a slip of the pen the name “Java” was substituted for “Champa” as the point of departure, locating Sumatra 1,300 miles to the south of Java instead of Champa. Locach, located between Champa and Sumatra, was likewise mis-placed far to the south of Java, by some geographers on or near an extension of the
Terra Australis. As explained by Sir
Henry YuleSir Henry Yule was a Scottish Orientalist.He was born at Inveresk, Scotland, near Edinburgh, the son of Major William Yule , translator of the Apothegms of Ali. Henry Yule was educated at Edinburgh, Addiscombe, and Chatham, and joined the Bengal Engineers in 1840...
, the editor of an English edition of Marco Polo’s
Travels: “Some geographers of the 16th century, following the old editions which carried the travellers south-east of Java to the land of “Boeach” (or Locac), introduced in their maps a continent in that situation”. Gerard Mercator did just that on his 1541 globe, placing
Beach provincia aurifera (“Beach the gold-bearing province”) in the northernmost part of the
Terra Australis in accordance with the faulty text of Marco Polo’s
Travels. It remained in this location on his world map of 1569, with the amplified description, quoting Marco Polo,
Beach provincia aurifera quam pauci ex alienis regionibus adeunt propter gentis inhumanitatem (“Beach the gold-bearing province, wither few go from other countries because of the inhumanity of its people”) with
Lucach regnum shown somewhat to its south west. Following Mercator,
Abraham Orteliusthumb|250px|Abraham Ortelius by [[Peter Paul Rubens]]Abraham Ortelius thumb|250px|Abraham Ortelius by [[Peter Paul Rubens]]Abraham Ortelius (Abraham Ortels) thumb|250px|Abraham Ortelius by [[Peter Paul Rubens]]Abraham Ortelius (Abraham Ortels) (April 14, 1527 – June 28,exile in England to take...
also showed
BEACH and
LVCACH in these locations on his world map of 1571. Likewise, Linschoten’s very popular 1596 map of the East Indies showed
BEACH projecting from the map’s southern edge, leading (or mis-leading) Visscher and Tasman in their voyage of 1642 to seek Beach with its plentiful gold in a location to the south of the
Solomon IslandsSolomon Islands is a sovereign state in Oceania, east of Papua New Guinea, consisting of nearly one thousand islands. It covers a land mass of . The capital, Honiara, is located on the island of Guadalcanal...
somewhere between Staten Land near
Cape HornCape Horn is the southernmost headland of the Tierra del Fuego archipelago of southern Chile, and is located on the small Hornos Island...
and the
Cape of Good HopeThe Cape of Good Hope is a rocky headland on the Atlantic coast of the Cape Peninsula, South Africa.There is a misconception that the Cape of Good Hope is the southern tip of Africa, because it was once believed to be the dividing point between the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. In fact, the...
. Confirmation that land existed where the maps showed
Beach to be had come from
Dirk HartogDirk Hartog was a 17th century Dutch sailor and explorer. Dirk Hartog's expedition was the third European group to land on Australian soil. He was the first to leave behind an artifact to record his visit, the Hartog plate. His name is sometimes alternatively spelled Dirck Hartog or Dierick...
’s landing in October 1616 on its west coast, which he called Eendrachtsland after the name of his ship. Abel Tasman endured a very rough journey from Tasmania to New Zealand. In one of his diary entries Tasman credits his compass, claiming it was the only thing that kept him alive.
Mauritius
In accordance with Visscher's directions, Tasman sailed first to
MauritiusMauritius , officially the Republic of Mauritius is an island nation off the southeast coast of the African continent in the southwest Indian Ocean, about east of Madagascar...
and arrived on 5 September 1642. The reason for this was the crew could be fed well on the island; there was plenty of fresh water and timber to repair the ships. Tasman got the assistance of the governor
Adriaan van der StelAdriaan van der Stel was opperhoofd of Mauritius from 1640? to 1645. He was succeeded by Jacob van der Meersch.Adriaan Van Der Stel succeeded Governor Cornelius Gooyer. He landed on the island with seventy men, of whom forty were invalids. the latter thought that they would recover their health....
. Because of the prevailing winds Mauritius was chosen as a turning point. After a four week stay on the island both ships left on 8 October. After one month it started to snow and hail; Tasman changed course more north. Part of the western shore of the continent was already known to the Dutch, but no one had gone as far as
Pieter NuytsPieter Nuyts or Nuijts was a Dutch explorer, diplomat, and politician.He was part of a landmark expedition of the Dutch East India Company in 1626–27, which mapped the southern coast of Australia. He became the Dutch ambassador to Japan in 1627, and he was appointed Governor of Formosa in the same...
.
Tasmania
On 24 November 1642 Abel Tasman sighted the west coast of Tasmania, north of Macquarie Harbour. He named his discovery Van Diemen's Land after
Anthony van DiemenAnthony van Diemen , Dutch colonial governor, was born in Culemborg in the Netherlands, the son of Meeus Anthonisz van Diemen and Christina Hoevenaar. In 1616 he moved to Amsterdam, in hope of improving his fortune as a merchant; in this he failed and was declared bankrupt...
,
Governor-General of the Dutch East IndiesThe Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies represented the Dutch rule in the Dutch East Indies between 1610 and Dutch recognition of the independence of Indonesia in 1949.The first Governors-General were appointed by the Dutch East India Company...
. Proceeding south he skirted the southern end of Tasmania and turned north-east, Tasman then tried to work his two ships into
Adventure BayAdventure Bay is a bay on Bruny Island in southeastern Tasmania. Discovered in 1773 by Tobias Furneaux, it was named after his ship, HMS Adventure. James Cook explored the region in 1777, as did William Bligh in 1788 and 1792....
on the east coast of South Bruny Island where he was blown out to sea by a storm, this area he named
Storm BayStorm Bay is a large bay in the south-east of Tasmania, Australia. It is the entrance to the Derwent River estuary and the port of Hobart, the capital city of Tasmania.It is bordered by Bruny Island to the west and the Tasman Peninsula to the east....
. Two days later Tasman anchored to the North of Cape Frederick Hendrick just North of the
Forestier PeninsulaThe Forestier Peninsula is a peninsula of the Australian island state of Tasmania. Its coordinates are . It is connected to the mainland at East Bay Neck, near the town of Dunalley...
. Tasman then landed in Blackman Bay – in the larger
Marion BayMarion Bay is a large bay and a bounded locality located on the southeast coast of Tasmania, Australia. It is near Dunalley in the Municipality of Sorell...
. The next day, an attempt was made to land in North Bay; however, because the sea was too rough the carpenter swam through the surf and planted the Dutch flag in North Bay. Tasman then claimed formal possession of the land on 3 December 1642.
New Zealand
After some exploration, Tasman had intended to proceed in a northerly direction but as the wind was unfavourable he steered east. On 13 December they sighted land on the north-west coast of the
South IslandThe South Island is the larger of the two major islands of New Zealand, the other being the more populous North Island. It is bordered to the north by Cook Strait, to the west by the Tasman Sea, to the south and east by the Pacific Ocean...
, New Zealand, becoming the first Europeans to do so. Tasman named it
Staten Landt on the assumption that it was connected to an island (Staten Island, Argentina) at the south of the tip of
South AmericaSouth America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...
. Proceeding north and then east, he stopped to gather water, but one of his boats was attacked by Māori in
wakaWaka are Māori watercraft, usually canoes ranging in size from small, unornamented canoes used for fishing and river travel, to large decorated war canoes up to long...
(canoes) and four of his men and several Māori were killed. Archeological research has shown the Dutch had tried to land at a major agricultural area, which the Māori may have been trying to protect. Tasman named the bay
Murderers' Bay (now known as
Golden BayGolden Bay lies at the edge of the junction between the Tasman Sea and Cook Strait. It stretches for 45 kilometres from the long sand spit of Farewell Spit in the north to Separation Point in Abel Tasman National Park at its southern extremity...
) and sailed north, but mistook
Cook StraitCook Strait is the strait between the North and South Islands of New Zealand. It connects the Tasman Sea on the west with the South Pacific Ocean on the east....
for a
bightIn geography, bight has two meanings. A bight can be simply a bend or curve in any geographical feature—usually a bend or curve in the line between land and water....
(naming it
Zeehaen's Bight). Two names he gave to New Zealand landmarks still endure,
Cape Maria van DiemenCape Maria van Diemen is the westernmost point of the North Island of New Zealand. Being close to the northern tip of the Aupouri Peninsula, many people in New Zealand also incorrectly believe it to be the northernmost point...
and
Three Kings IslandsThe Three Kings Islands or Manawa Islands are a group of 13 islands about northwest of Cape Reinga, the northernmost point of the North Island of New Zealand, where the South Pacific Ocean and Tasman Sea converge. They measure about 4.86 km² in area...
, but
Cabo Pieter Boreels is now known as
Cape EgmontCape Egmont is the westernmost point of Taranaki, on the west coast of New Zealand's North Island. It is located close to the volcanic cone of Mount Taranaki or Mount Egmont....
.
The return voyage
On route back to Batavia, Tasman came across the
TongaTonga, officially the Kingdom of Tonga , is a state and an archipelago in the South Pacific Ocean, comprising 176 islands scattered over of ocean in the South Pacific...
n archipelago on 20 January 1643. While passing the Fiji Islands Tasman's ships came close to being wrecked on the dangerous reefs of the north-eastern part of the Fiji group. He charted the eastern tip of
Vanua LevuVanua Levu , formerly known as Sandalwood Island, is the second largest island of Fiji. Located 64 kilometres to the north of the larger Viti Levu, the island has an area of 5,587.1 km² and a population of some 130,000.- Geography :...
and Cikobia before making his way back into the open sea. He eventually turned north-west to
New GuineaNew Guinea is the world's second largest island, after Greenland, covering a land area of 786,000 km2. Located in the southwest Pacific Ocean, it lies geographically to the east of the Malay Archipelago, with which it is sometimes included as part of a greater Indo-Australian Archipelago...
, and arrived at Batavia on 15 June 1643.
Second Pacific voyage
With three ships on his second voyage (
Limmen,
Zeemeeuw and the tender
Braek) in 1644, he followed the south coast of New Guinea eastwards. He missed the
Torres StraitThe Torres Strait is a body of water which lies between Australia and the Melanesian island of New Guinea. It is approximately wide at its narrowest extent. To the south is Cape York Peninsula, the northernmost continental extremity of the Australian state of Queensland...
between New Guinea and Australia, and continued his voyage along the Australian coast. He mapped the north coast of Australia making observations on the land, called
New HollandNew Holland is a historic name for the island continent of Australia. The name was first applied to Australia in 1644 by the Dutch seafarer Abel Tasman as Nova Hollandia, naming it after the Dutch province of Holland, and remained in use for 180 years....
, and its people.
From the point of view of the Dutch East India Company Tasman's explorations were a disappointment: he had neither found a promising area for trade nor a useful new shipping route. Although received modestly, the company was upset to a degree that Tasman failed didn't fully explore the lands he found, and decided that a more "persistent explorer" should be chosen for any future expeditions. For over a century, until the era of
James CookCaptain James Cook, FRS, RN was a British explorer, navigator and cartographer who ultimately rose to the rank of captain in the Royal Navy...
, Tasmania and New Zealand were not visited by Europeans – mainland Australia was visited, but usually only by accident.
Later life
On 2 November 1644 Abel Tasman was appointed a member of the Council of Justice at Batavia. He went to Sumatra in 1646, and in August 1647 to Siam (now
ThailandThailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...
) with letters from the company to the King. In May 1648 he was in charge of an expedition sent to
ManilaManila is the capital of the Philippines. It is one of the sixteen cities forming Metro Manila.Manila is located on the eastern shores of Manila Bay and is bordered by Navotas and Caloocan to the north, Quezon City to the northeast, San Juan and Mandaluyong to the east, Makati on the southeast,...
to try to intercept and loot the Spanish silver ships coming from America, but he had no success and returned to Batavia in January 1649. In November 1649 he was charged and found guilty of having in the previous year hanged one of his men without trial, was suspended from his office of commander, fined, and made to pay compensation to the relatives of the sailor. On 5 January 1651 he was formally reinstated in his rank and spent his remaining years at Batavia. He was in good circumstances, being one of the larger landowners in the town. He died at Batavia in October 1659 and was survived by his second wife and a daughter by his first wife. The poor in
LutjegastLutjegast is a village in the Westerkwartier area of Groningen in the Netherlands. It is administered as part of the municipality Grootegast.Lutjegast was the birth place of the explorer Abel Tasman...
received the small amount of only 25 guilders.
Tasman's legacy
As with many explorers, Tasman's name has been honoured in many ways. These include:
- the Australian island Tasmania, renamed after him, formerly Van Diemen's land. It includes features such as:
- the Tasman Peninsula
Tasman Peninsula is located around by road south-east of Hobart, at the south east corner of Tasmania, Australia.-Description:The Tasman Peninsula lies south and west of Forestier Peninsula, to which it is connected by an isthmus called Eaglehawk Neck...
- the Tasman Bridge
The Tasman Bridge is a five-lane bridge crossing the Derwent River, near the CBD of Hobart, Tasmania. The bridge has a total length of 1,395 metres . It provides the main traffic route from the CBD to the eastern shore - particularly Hobart International Airport and Bellerive Oval...
- the Tasman Highway
The Tasman Highway is a highway in Tasmania, Australia. Like the Midland Highway, it connects the major cities of Hobart and Launceston — however it takes a different route, via the north-eastern and eastern coasts of the state. The Highway also acts as a major commuter road to Hobart...
- the passenger/vehicle ferry Abel Tasman
M/S Abel Tasman was a passenger/vehicle ferry built at shipyard Nobiskrug in Rendsburg, Germany in 1975.- History :The M/S Abel Tasman was the first ferry of the TT-line - a passenger/vehicle ferry that was built at Nobiskrug in Rendsburg for the TT-line as the Nils Holgersson for the...
- and, indirectly, two marsupial
Marsupials are an infraclass of mammals, characterized by giving birth to relatively undeveloped young. Close to 70% of the 334 extant species occur in Australia, New Guinea, and nearby islands, with the remaining 100 found in the Americas, primarily in South America, but with thirteen in Central...
species are named after Tasman:
- the Tasmanian Devil
The Tasmanian devil is a carnivorous marsupial of the family Dasyuridae, now found in the wild only on the Australian island state of Tasmania. The size of a small dog, it became the largest carnivorous marsupial in the world following the extinction of the thylacine in 1936...
- the Tasmanian Tiger
The thylacine or ,also ;binomial name: Thylacinus cynocephalus, Greek for "dog-headed pouched one") was the largest known carnivorous marsupial of modern times. It is commonly known as the Tasmanian tiger or the Tasmanian wolf...
- a plant
Plants are living organisms belonging to the kingdom Plantae. Precise definitions of the kingdom vary, but as the term is used here, plants include familiar organisms such as trees, flowers, herbs, bushes, grasses, vines, ferns, mosses, and green algae. The group is also called green plants or...
genus
- Tasmannia
Tasmannia is a genus of woody, evergreen flowering plants of the family Winteraceae. There are 40 species of Tasmannia native to Australia, New Guinea, Celebes, Borneo, and Philippines. The Winteraceae are magnoliids, and are associated with the humid Antarctic flora of the southern hemisphere...
- the Tasman Sea
The Tasman Sea is the large body of water between Australia and New Zealand, approximately across. It extends 2,800 km from north to south. It is a south-western segment of the South Pacific Ocean. The sea was named after the Dutch explorer Abel Janszoon Tasman, the first recorded European...
- in New Zealand:
- the Tasman Glacier
The Tasman Glacier is the largest of several glaciers which flow south and east towards the Mackenzie Basin from the Southern Alps in New Zealand's South Island. It is New Zealand's longest glacier.-Geography:...
- Tasman Lake
Tasman Lake is a proglacial lake formed by the recent retreat of the Tasman Glacier in New Zealand's South Island.In the early 1970s, there were several small meltwater ponds on the Tasman Glacier. By 1990, these ponds had merged into Tasman Lake....
- the Tasman River
The Tasman River is an alpine braided river flowing through Canterbury, in New Zealand's South Island.The river's headwaters are in Aoraki/Mount Cook National Park, where it is the outflow of the Tasman and Murchison Glaciers and also, via a short tributary, of the Hooker and Mueller Glaciers.It...
- Mount Tasman
Mount Tasman is New Zealand's second highest mountain, rising to a height of 3497 metres. It is located in the Southern Alps of the South Island, four kilometres to the north of its larger neighbour, Aoraki/Mount Cook...
- the Abel Tasman National Park
Abel Tasman National Park is a national park located at the north end of the South Island of New Zealand. The park was founded in 1942, largely through the efforts of ornithologist and author Perrine Moncrieff to have land reserved for the purpose. With a coverage of only 225.3 square kilometres,...
- Tasman Bay
Tasman Bay is a large V-shaped bay at the north end of New Zealand's South Island. Located in the centre of the island's northern coast, it stretches along of coastline and is across at its widest point. It is an arm of the Tasman Sea, lying on the western approach to Cook Strait.At the bay's...
- the Tasman District
The Tasman Region is both a region and a district of New Zealand. It borders with the West Coast Region, Marlborough Region and the Nelson Region. It is both a region and a unitary authority, and the District Council sits at Richmond, with Community Boards serving outlying communities in Motueka...
- Abel Tasman Drive, in Takaka.
- the Able Tasman Memorial in Takaka.
- The Able Tasmans
The Able Tasmans were an indie band from Auckland, New Zealand.At various times, the band consisted of Leslie Jonkers, Peter Keen, Graeme Humphreys, Craig Mason, Jane Dodd , and Ronald Young. They formed in 1984, and named themselves after the Dutch explorer Abel Tasman. They released four albums...
– an indie band from Auckland, New Zealand.
In 1985 he was honoured on a
postage stampA postage stamp is a small piece of paper that is purchased and displayed on an item of mail as evidence of payment of postage. Typically, stamps are made from special paper, with a national designation and denomination on the face, and a gum adhesive on the reverse side...
depicting his portrait issued by
Australia PostAustralia Post is the trading name of the Australian Government-owned Australian Postal Corporation .-History:...
.
Sources
- Edward Duyker
Edward Duyker is an Australian historian and author born in Melbourne, Victoria, to a father from the Netherlands and a mother from Mauritius...
(ed.) The Discovery of Tasmania: Journal Extracts from the Expeditions of Abel Janszoon Tasman and Marc-Joseph Marion Dufresne 1642 & 1772, St David's Park Publishing/Tasmanian Government Printing Office, Hobart, 1992, pp. 106, ISBN 0-7246-2241-1.
External links
- A transcript of a paper on the voyages of Tasman, read to the Royal Society of Tasmania in 1895
- The Tasman page at Project Gutenberg of Australia This page has links to Tasman's journal and other important documents relating to Tasman
- The Huydecoper journal – Abel Tasman – The State Library of NSW
- http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A020463b.htmJ. W. Forsyth, 'Tasman, Abel Janszoon (1603? – 1659)', Australian Dictionary of Biography
The Australian Dictionary of Biography is a national, co-operative enterprise, founded and maintained by the Australian National University to produce authoritative biographical articles on eminent people in Australia's history....
, Volume 2, Melbourne University Press, 1967, pp 503–504.]