Confirmed Assumptions

Terra Australis Incognita

Terra Australis Incognita – the Unknown Southen Land was a hypothetical continent supposed to exist at the extreme south of the known world. Other names for this putative land have included Terra Australis, Terra Australis Nondum Cognita (Latin for "The Southern Land Not Yet Known"), Brasiliae Australis, Magallanica или Magellanica ("the land of Magellan"), La Australia del Espíritu Santo (Spanish for "the Southern Land of the Holy Spirit") etc.

Subsequently, the term Terra Australis gave the name to the continent Australia. Since ancient times, most maps showed Terra Australis as a large land mass centred on the South Pole. According to the ideas of the ancients, it had to balance the huge continental mass of the Northern Hemisphere. An unknown land was depicted on map until the second half of the 18th century, although, at the time, no evidence of its existence was found.

The outlines of the continent was depicted arbitrary, it often was combined with South America or Australia. Mountains, forests and rivers were often featured on it. In the 18th century, because of increased requirements for the reliability of the source data for mapping, the supposed continent ceased to be shown on maps.

Antarctica was opened in 1820 by the expedition of the Imperial Russian Navy led by Thaddeus von Bellingshaus and Mikhail Lazarev.
History of the mapping of the Unknown Southern Land - Antarctica is a rare case when the invented territory exists in reality.

     

Strait Aniane

The Strait Aniane (El Streto de Anian) was suggested to separate the American continent from Asia, it began to be depicted on maps in the beginning of the 16th century.

For the first time the name "Aniane" appeared in a work of Italian map- maker J. Gastaldi in 1562. It is noteworthy that on the map of the Dutch cartographer Gerard de Jode , compiled in the Latin language, the name of the strait is given in Italian. It is also known that the Western European cartographers of the 16th-17th centuries actively used the Russian sources, so it can be assumed that information, penetrating to Europe from Muscovy, contributed to the origin of the legend of the Strait Aniane, and the place-name "Aniane" was derived from a corrupted Russion word for "Ocean".

As it is known, in the early 16th century, F. Magellan made his first voyage around the world and discovered the strait that connects the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific. After that, some explorers and scientists speculated that if there was a strait in the south of the American continent, the similar strait had to locate in the north.

In fact Cossacks S. Dezhnyov and F. Popov first discovered the strait separating Asia from America, during their fishing expedition in 1648, but the strait was named after the Russian navigator Vitus Bering whose expedition passed through it in 1728.

History of the mapping of the Strait Aniane - Bering Strait is a rare case when the invented territory exists in reality.

     

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