Terra Australis was a hypothetical continent first posited in antiquity and which appeared on maps between the 15th and 18th centuries. Its existence was not based on any survey or direct observation, but rather on the idea that continental land in the Northern Hemisphere should be balanced by land in the Southern Hemisphere. This theory of balancing land has been documented as early as the 5th century on maps by Macrobius, who uses the term Australis on his maps.
Marooning is the intentional act of abandoning someone in an uninhabited area, such as a desert island, or more generally to be marooned is to be in a place from which one cannot escape. The word is attested in 1699, and is derived from the term maroon, a word for a fugitive slave, which could be a corruption of Spanish cimarrón, meaning a household animal who has "run wild". Cimarrón in turn may be derived from the Taino word símaran (“wild”), from símara (“arrow”).
The 16th century in Canada saw the first contacts, since the Norsemen 500 years earlier, between the indigenous peoples in Canada living near the Atlantic coast and European fishermen, whalers, traders, and explorers.
The Island of California refers to a long-held global misconception, dating from the 16th century, that California was not part of mainland North America but rather a large island separated from the continent by a strait now known as the Gulf of California.
Frisland, also called Frischlant, Friesland, Frislanda, Frislandia, or Fixland, is a phantom island that appeared on virtually all of the maps of the North Atlantic from the 1560s through the 1660s.
Antillia is a phantom island that was reputed, during the 15th-century age of exploration, to lie in the Atlantic Ocean, far to the west of Portugal and Spain. The island also went by the name of Isle of Seven Cities.
Red Bay is a fishing village in Labrador, notable as one of the most precious underwater archaeological sites in the Americas. Between 1530 and the early 17th century, it was a major Basque whaling area. Several whaling ships, both large galleons and small chalupas, sank there, and their discovery led to the designation of Red Bay in 2013 as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Baccalieu Island or Bacalhoo Island is a 5 km2 uninhabited island at the northern extremities of Conception Bay in Subdivision 1G, near the community of Red Head Cove, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. It is separated from the island of Newfoundland by Baccalieu Tickle, a small strait and an abundant fishing ground. The island has some trees but is mostly rocky.
Trepassey is a small fishing community located in Trepassey Bay on the south eastern corner of the Avalon Peninsula of Newfoundland and Labrador. It was in Trepassey Harbour where the flight of the Friendship took off, with Amelia Earhart on board, the first woman to fly across the Atlantic Ocean.
The term "New World" is used to describe the majority of lands of Earth's Western Hemisphere, particularly the Americas. The term gained prominence in the early 16th century during Europe's Age of Discovery, after Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci published the Latin-language pamphlet Mundus Novus, presenting his conclusion that these lands constitute a new continent. This realization expanded the geographical horizon of earlier European geographers, who had thought that the world only included Afro-Eurasian lands. Africa, Asia and Europe thus became collectively called the "Old World" of the Eastern Hemisphere, while the Americas were then referred to as "the fourth part of the world", or the "New World".
The earliest known world maps date to classical antiquity, the oldest examples of the 6th to 5th centuries BCE still based on the flat Earth paradigm. World maps assuming a spherical Earth first appear in the Hellenistic period. The developments of Greek geography during this time, notably by Eratosthenes and Posidonius culminated in the Roman era, with Ptolemy's world map, which would remain authoritative throughout the Middle Ages. Since Ptolemy, knowledge of the approximate size of the Earth allowed cartographers to estimate the extent of their geographical knowledge, and to indicate parts of the planet known to exist but not yet explored as terra incognita.
The history of Saint Pierre and Miquelon is one of early settlement by Europeans taking advantage of the rich fishing grounds near Saint-Pierre and Miquelon, and is characterized by periods of conflict between the French and British.
Johannes Ruysch, a.k.a. Johann Ruijsch or Giovanni Ruisch was an explorer, cartographer, astronomer, manuscript illustrator and painter from the Low Countries who produced a famous map of the world: the second oldest known printed representation of the New World. This Ruysch map was published and widely distributed in 1507.
The following article describes the history of the Azores, an archipelago composed of nine volcanic islands in the Macaronesia region of the North Atlantic Ocean, about 1,400 km (870 mi) west of Lisbon, about 1,500 km (930 mi) northwest of Morocco, and about 1,930 km (1,200 mi) southeast of Newfoundland, Canada.
Marguerite de La Rocque de Roberval was a French noblewoman who spent some years marooned on the Île des Démons while on her way to New France (Quebec). She became well known after her subsequent rescue and return to France; her story was recounted in the Heptaméron by Queen Marguerite of Navarre, and in later histories by François de Belleforest and André Thévet. Her story has been retold many times since 1560.
Newfoundland is a large island situated off the eastern coast of the North American mainland and the most populous part of the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. The island contains 29 percent of the province's land area. The island is separated from the Labrador Peninsula by the Strait of Belle Isle and from Cape Breton Island by the Cabot Strait. It blocks the mouth of the Saint Lawrence River, creating the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, the world's largest estuary. Newfoundland's nearest neighbour is the French overseas collectivity of Saint Pierre and Miquelon.
Zuane Pizzigano, was a 15th-century Venetian cartographer. He is the author of a famous 1424 portolan chart, the first known to depict the phantom islands of the purported Antillia archipelago, in the north Atlantic Ocean.
The island of Satanazes is a legendary island once thought to be located in the Atlantic Ocean, and depicted on many 15th-century maps.
The Basques were among the first people to catch whales commercially rather than purely for subsistence and dominated the trade for five centuries, spreading to the far corners of the North Atlantic and even reaching the South Atlantic. The French explorer Samuel de Champlain, when writing about Basque whaling in Terranova, described them as "the cleverest men at this fishing". By the early 17th century, other nations entered the trade in earnest, seeking the Basques as tutors, "for [they] were then the only people who understand whaling", lamented the English explorer Jonas Poole.
The settlement of Basques in the Americas was the process of Basque emigration and settlement in the New World. Thus, there is a deep cultural and social Basque heritage in some places in the Americas, the most famous of which being Saint Pierre and Miquelon, Central America, Guatemala and Antioquia, Colombia.
