# New South Wales **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 1, 2012, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-south-wales/611378 "2012-02-01T02:26:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Shakester](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shakester/32/437_2.png) [@Shakester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shakester)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2012, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-south-wales/611378/21 "2012-02-01T16:10:57Z")
Furthermore, Priscilla was set (and made) in Central Australia: South Australia and the Northern Territory. **Not** NSW. Check your facts first if you’re going to argue what Australia is like with with actual Australians. ---
**Author:** ![coremelt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4491bb/32.png) [@coremelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coremelt)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2012, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-south-wales/611378/22 "2012-02-01T16:19:52Z")
so just to drive home the point a bit more: [![](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Warrumbungle_breadknife.jpg) ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Warrumbungle_breadknife.jpg) Thats what a lot of the coast visible from the sea would have looked like pre-european colonization. It’s not all that rugged, but it would have been that densely forested before the colonists arrived and cleared the eastern seaboard for agriculture. ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2012, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-south-wales/611378/23 "2012-02-01T16:47:46Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > It seems to me that there are two plausible reasons for naming somewhere New Somwhere-else, either homesickness/pride in one’s native land, or a perceived resemblance. Right, so who was thinking of Foundland when he first got to present-day Canada? ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2012, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-south-wales/611378/24 "2012-02-01T16:57:01Z")
> [@Shakester](#): > > Except you are wrong and it isn’t. MOST of NSW is not arid. Only the westernmost parts are arid. MOST of NSW is green and hilly. > > What coremelt says a few posts later is correct. I haven’t been there, but I can read a map or view a [satellite picture](http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?hl=en&tab=wl)? Most of NSW there, certainly a good half, is brown. I am quite aware that the coastal regions are green and fairly well watered (not that that means it has a climate anything like the old South Wales, which is also a lot colder, for one thing, and, I am pretty sure, still a lot wetter), but that is not _most_ of the state. I do not think the fact (if it is a fact) that you live there, presumably in the green coastal regions where most of the people do live, necessarily gives you a special insight into what the proportions of arid and non-arid areas are over the state as a whole. To figure that out you would need to look at a map or at statistical data, just like anybody anywhere else. Anyway, I do not think even you will want to deny that a good chunk of NSW is pretty damn arid (desert or no), and the point is that there is nowhere at all, not even a square inch, that is even remotely arid in the old South Wales. I do take **coremelt** ’s point, however, that the regions visible from along the coast are quite green and hilly, and these were the only parts that Cook would have been aware of. ---
**Author:** ![flano1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/f14d63/32.png) [@flano1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flano1)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2012, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-south-wales/611378/25 "2012-02-01T17:07:34Z")
snerk one post too far ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2012, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-south-wales/611378/26 "2012-02-01T17:47:43Z")
> [@Giles](#): > > Incidentally, most of what Cook named as “New South Wales” is now part of Queensland, and has been since 1859. Wasn’t all of mainland Australia apart from Western Australia once within New South Wales? ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2012, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-south-wales/611378/27 "2012-02-01T17:48:48Z")
> [@Cazzle](#): > > Is it the new “South Wales”, or the new, south(ern), Wales? New + South Wales, definitely. The Welsh, by the way, is “Deheubarth Newydd”; “Deheubarth” is South Wales and “Newydd” is New. Oh, and re: not an inch of desert in South Wales: some of the sand dune scenes in _Lawrence of Arabia_ were shot in South Wales, in Merthyr Mawr. [QUOTE=njtt] (I do not think anyone ever talks about even an old East Wales.) [/QUOTE] England. The English tend to conveniently forget about that. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2012, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-south-wales/611378/28 "2012-02-01T17:53:04Z")
> [@Shakester](#): > > Then you have obviously never been there. I’m guessing you’re American. Americans seem to have this fixed idea that Australia is just a much bigger version of Saudi Arabia. Better not tell them Australia is also full of [camels](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_feral_camel), then. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Cunctator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/43a26b/32.png) [@Cunctator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cunctator)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2012, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-south-wales/611378/29 "2012-02-01T22:11:30Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > Wasn’t all of mainland Australia apart from Western Australia once within New South Wales? Tasmania too, as was (briefly) New Zealand. There’s a map showing the development of the various jurisdictions [here](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_states). ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2012, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-south-wales/611378/30 "2012-02-01T23:08:46Z")
> [@coremelt](#): > > so just to drive home the point a bit more: > [File:Warrumbungle breadknife.jpg - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Warrumbungle_breadknife.jpg) > > Thats what a lot of the coast visible from the sea would have looked like pre-european colonization. It’s not all that rugged, but it would have been that densely forested before the colonists arrived and cleared the eastern seaboard for agriculture. No, not at all. We know from both written accounts and paleontology that at the time of European settlement the East cost was much less densely timbered than it is today. The use of the word forest incorrect for \>90% of the coast of NSW, it’s almost entirely woodland, with only tiny pockets of forest. At the time of European settlement the forest were much, much smaller in extent, and the woodlands much, much less densely treed. ---
**Author:** ![coremelt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4491bb/32.png) [@coremelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coremelt)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2012, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-south-wales/611378/31 "2012-02-02T00:50:17Z")
I’d like to see your cites for that Blake. It’s apparently an issue of contention at the moment, some people are claiming that the woodlands were less dense but the only paper I can find is specific to central NSW (not coastal areas). Doesn’t seem proven either way from what I can tell and there is still people arguing that a dense cover of woodland was the norm before colonization so it’s not as clear cut as you state. > **[Welcome](https://science-health.csu.edu.au/herbarium)** [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-south-wales/611378.md?page=1)