This Place: Sharing Indigenous place names
To celebrate UNESCO International Mother Language Day in 2025 ABC News and First Languages Australia relaunched This Place. The national project shares the stories behind Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander place names.
Through the project Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people can publish stories about place names in their region.
Through This Place, hundreds of language custodians across Australia are collaborating with ABC producers to share the meaning and stories behind Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander place names.
Video producers from the ABC’s 67 locations will be seeking to collaborate with local Indigenous communities to share place name stories. If you are interested in participating, please email thisplace@abc.net.au
This incredible collection of beautiful place stories continues to grow, and you can access them via Gambay, First Languages Australia’s interactive languages map.
“The relaunch of This Place is an exciting venture the ABC is thrilled to be a part of again,” said ABC News Head International & Indigenous News, Suzanne Dredge.
“This project brings an understanding of who we are and why it’s important to continue documenting and celebrating more than 65,000 years of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture. This Place is a community led project where language custodians share the rich cultural heritage of this continent for our future generations.”
“First Languages Australia is pleased to see this important project launched again and we look forward to sharing these films as they are released,” said First Languages Australia CEO, Beau Williams.
“We recognise the importance of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people being able to speak - and speak about - their languages. As the national peak body for strengthening our languages, we’re looking forward to increasing public awareness of First Nations languages.”
This Place originally ran from 2019 - 2020, as part of the UN Year of Indigenous Languages, with more than 60 videos produced.
At the time, then-First Languages Australia Manager, Faith Baisden, expected the contributions to be varied, with people sharing traditional names that are not on official maps while also explaining the meaning behind well-known places.
“This Place is a wonderful opportunity to tell the stories of the land while also building a beautiful visual collection that will help everyone have a deeper understanding of the connection through the ages of people to this land,” Faith said. “Contributors will use the project to celebrate places that are important to them.”
Former Director of ABC Regional and Local, Michael Mason, said the ABC’s network of metropolitan and regional stations in 56 locations around Australia had already established strong relationships with local language centres through the radio network’s on-air identifications in language and Mother Tongue project partnerships with First Languages Australia. “We see the place names project as a further strengthening of these relationships as well as giving us the opportunity to build new ones,” Mr Mason said.
Writer and historian Bruce Pascoe is one of the drivers behind First Languages Australia's national place names project, titled Nangun wruk–which means 'our earth' or 'we are of the earth' in Bidhawal, a language of the coastal Victorian and NSW border region.