Australia Felix

From Australia + Latin felix (“fortunate, happy”). Proposed as a name for parts of Victoria (Australia) explored by Thomas Mitchell (1792-1855).[1]

Australia Felix

1. (historical or literary) A name for the comparatively lush areas of western Victoria, Australia.
   • 1839, Thomas Mitchell, Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Volume 2, Gutenberg eBook #13033,

     I named this region Australia Felix, the better to distinguish it from the parched deserts of the interior country where we had wandered so unprofitably and so long.

   • 1851, Henry Saxelby Melville, The Present State of Australia: Including New South Wales, Western Australia, South Australia and New Zealand‎, page 59:

     Victoria, known as Australia Felix, is bounded on the north and north-east by a straight line drawn from Cape How to the nearest source of the Murray River ; on the west by the eastern boundary of South Australia, or the 141° of east longitude, from the River Murray to the sea coast, and along the coast, including the adjacent islands, to Cape How.

   • 1917, Henry Handel Richardson, Australia Felix: