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Willem Janszoon
Sign in to saveAlso known as Willem Jansson, Willem Jansz
Dutch navigator and colonial governor (c.1570–c.1630)
Key facts
- Born
- c. 1570 , Amsterdam , Spanish Netherlands
- Died
- c. 1630 (aged around 60)
- Other names
- Willem Jansz. Willem Jansz
- Occupations
- Navigator and colonial governor
- Known for
- European discovery of Australia
via Wikipedia infobox
Wikidata facts
- Instance of
- human
- Given name
- Willem
- Gender
- male
- Citizenship
- Dutch Republic
- Place of birth
- Amsterdam
- Employer
- Dutch East India Company
- Languages spoken
- Dutch
- Military rank
- admiral
Show 4 more facts
- date of birth
- 1570-01-01
- date of death
- 1630-00-00
- name in native language
- Willem Janszoon
- patronym or matronym
- Janszoon
Sources (2)
via Wikidata · CC0
~9 min read
Encyclopedic overview
Willem Janszoon ( Dutch: [ˈʋɪləm ˈjɑnszoːn]; c. 1570 – c. 1630) was a Dutch navigator and colonial governor. He served in the Dutch East Indies in the periods 1603–1611 and 1612–1616, including as governor of Fort Henricus on the island of Solor. During his voyage of 1605–1606, Janszoon and his crew became the first Europeans known to have seen and land on the coast of Australia.
His name is sometimes abbreviated to Willem Jansz, as was customary at his time, but "always pronounced in full and generally still is in the Netherlands where this bit of common knowledge is taught at school." However, the abbreviation Jansz is not the same as the now more predominant unabbreviated but identical Jansz that is a petrified form of Janszoon.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Willem Janszoon” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.
On the map
2 mapped locations