This is a list of maritime explorers. The list includes explorers which had contributed, and continue to contribute to human knowledge of the planet's geography, weather, biodiversity, human cultures, the expansion of trade, or established communication between diverse populations...
| Nationality | Sailed for | Name | First voyage of exploration | Last voyage of exploration | Arctic [1] | North Atlantic | Indian | Pacific | South Atlantic | Southern |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Portuguese | Portugal | de Abreu, António | 1507 | 1512 | ||||||
| Portuguese | Portugal | de Albuquerque, Afonso | 1503 | |||||||
| Portuguese | Portugal | de Alenquer, Pero | 1487 | 1488 | ||||||
| Portuguese | Portugal | de Almeida, Francisco | ||||||||
| Portuguese | Portugal | Álvares, Jorge | ||||||||
| Portuguese | Portugal | de Azambuja, Diogo | ||||||||
| Portuguese | Portugal | de Barcelos, Pero | ||||||||
| Newfoundlander [2] | United States | Bartlett, Robert | ||||||||
| Estonian [3] | Russia | von Bellingshausen, Fabian Gottlieb | * [4] | |||||||
| Danish [5] | Russia | Bering, Vitus | * | |||||||
| French | France | de Bougainville, Louis Antoine | ||||||||
| English | Britain | Byron, John | ||||||||
| Italian | England | Cabot, John | ||||||||
| Italian | England and Aragon | Cabot, Sebastian | ||||||||
| Portuguese | Portugal | Cabral, Pedro Álvares | ||||||||
| Portuguese [6] | Spain | Cabrilho, João Rodrígues | ||||||||
| Venetian | Portugal | Cadamosto. Alvise | ||||||||
| Portuguese | Portugal | Caminha, Álvaro | ||||||||
| Portuguese | Portugal | de Caminha, Pero Vaz | ||||||||
| Portuguese | Portugal | Cão, Diogo | ||||||||
| French | France | Cartier, Jacques | 1534 | |||||||
| English | England | Cavendish, Thomas | 1586-1588 | |||||||
| French | France | de Champlain, Samuel | ||||||||
| Portuguese | Portugal | Coelho, Gonçalo | ||||||||
| Portuguese | Portugal | Coelho, Nicolau | ||||||||
| Italian | Spain | Columbus, Christopher | ||||||||
| English | Britain | Cook, James | 1768–1771 | 1776–1779 | 3 | 1 | ||||
| Portuguese | Portugal | Corte-Real, Gaspar | ||||||||
| Portuguese | Portugal | Corte-Real, Miguel | ||||||||
| Portuguese | Portugal | da Cunha, Tristão | ||||||||
| English | England | Dampier, William | ||||||||
| English | England and Netherlands | Davis, John | ||||||||
| Russian | Russia | Dezhnev, Semyon | * | |||||||
| Portuguese | Portugal | Dias, Bartolomeu | ||||||||
| Portuguese | Portugal | Dias, Dinis | ||||||||
| Portuguese | Portugal | Dias, Diogo | ||||||||
| Portuguese | Portugal | Dias, Pero | ||||||||
| Portuguese | Portugal | do Pó, Fernão | ||||||||
| English | England | Drake, Francis | 1577–1581 | 1577–1581 | 1 | 1 | 1 | |||
| Portuguese | Portugal | Eanes, Gil | ||||||||
| Norwegian | Norse | Erik the Red | ||||||||
| Icelandic | Norse | Ericson, Leif | ||||||||
| Portuguese | Portugal | Escobar, Pedro | ||||||||
| Portuguese | Portugal | Fernandes, Álvaro | ||||||||
| English | Britain | Flinders, Matthew | ||||||||
| English | England | Frobisher, Martin | ||||||||
| Portuguese | Portugal | da Gama, Estêvão | ||||||||
| Portuguese | Portugal | da Gama, Paulo | ||||||||
| Portuguese | Portugal | da Gama, Vasco | 1497-1499 | 1524 | ||||||
| English | England and Ireland | Gilbert, Humphrey | ||||||||
| Russian | Russia | Golovnin, Vasily | * | |||||||
| Portuguese | Portugal | Gonçalves, André | ||||||||
| Portuguese | Portugal | Gonçalves, Antão | ||||||||
| Portuguese | Portugal | Gonçalves, Lopes | ||||||||
| Portuguese | Portugal | Grego, João | ||||||||
| English | England | Hudson, Henry | ||||||||
| Portuguese | Portugal | Infante, João | ||||||||
| Baltic German | Russia | von Kotzebue, Otto | * | |||||||
| Baltic German | Russia and Britain | Kruzenshtern, Ivan Fedorovich | * | |||||||
| French | France | de Lapérouse, Jean François de Galaup, comte | ||||||||
| Portuguese | Portugal and England | Lavrador, João Fernandes | ||||||||
| Russian | Russia and Britain | Lazarev, Mikhail Petrovich | * | |||||||
| Portuguese | Portugal | de Lemos, Gaspar | ||||||||
| Russian | Russia | Litke, Fyodor Petrovich | * | |||||||
| Portuguese | Spain and Portugal | Magellan, Ferdinand | ||||||||
| Dutch | Netherlands | le Maire, Jacob | ||||||||
| Portuguese | Portugal | Martins, Álvaro | ||||||||
| Portuguese | Portugal | Mascarenhas, Pedro | ||||||||
| Spanish | Spain | de Mendaña, Álvaro | 1567-1569 | |||||||
| Genoese | Portugal | Noli, António | ||||||||
| Portuguese | Portugal | de Noronha, Fernão | ||||||||
| Galician | Portugal | da Nova, João | ||||||||
| French | France | Paulmyer, Binot | ||||||||
| Portuguese | Portugal | Pereira, Duarte Pacheco | ||||||||
| Portuguese | Portugal | Perestrelo, Bartolomeu | ||||||||
| German | Denmark and Hamburg | Pining, Didrik | ||||||||
| Portuguese | Portugal | Pinto, Fernão Mendes | ||||||||
| Portuguese | Portugal | Pires, Luís | ||||||||
| Portuguese | Spain | de Queirós, Pedro Fernandes | ||||||||
| Portuguese | Portugal | Rodrigues, Diogo | ||||||||
| Portuguese | Portugal | de Santarém, João | ||||||||
| Dutch | Netherlands | Schouten, Willem | ||||||||
| Irish | Britain | Shackleton, Ernest | ||||||||
| Portuguese | Portugal | Silves, Diogo | ||||||||
| Portuguese | Portugal | de Sintra, Pedro | ||||||||
| Portuguese [7] | Spain | Soromenho, Sebastião Rodrígues | ||||||||
| Portuguese | Portugal | de Sousa, Martim Afonso | ||||||||
| Dutch | Netherlands | Tasman, Abel | ||||||||
| Portuguese | Portugal | Teixeira, Tristão Vaz | ||||||||
| Portuguese or Spanish (Galician) | Spain | de Torres, Luis Váez | ||||||||
| Portuguese | Portugal | Tristão, Nuno | ||||||||
| English | Britain | Vancouver, George | ||||||||
| Portuguese | Portugal | Vaz Corte-Real, João | ||||||||
| Portuguese | Portugal | Velho, Gonçalo | ||||||||
| Italian | France | da Verrazzano, Giovanni | ||||||||
| Italian | Spain and Portugal | Vespucci, Amerigo | ||||||||
| English | Britain | Wallis, Samuel | ||||||||
| Baltic German | Russia | Wrangel, Ferdinand Petrovich | * | |||||||
| Portuguese | Portugal | Zarco, João Gonçalves | ||||||||
| Chinese | China (Three Kingdoms period of China) | Kang Tai | 300 | |||||||
| Chinese | China (Three Kingdoms period of China) | Zhu Ying | 300 | |||||||
| Chinese | China (Yuen dynasty) | Wang Dayuan | 1330 | |||||||
| Chinese | China (Ming dynasty) | Zheng He | 1405 | 1431 | ||||||
| Chinese | China (Ming dynasty) | Ma Huan | 1413 | |||||||
| Chinese | China (Ming dynasty) | Fei Xin | 1409 |
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.
Joseph Billings was an English navigator, hydrographer and explorer who spent the most of his career in Russian service. From 1790 to 1794 he commanded a marine expedition that searched for a Northeast Passage and explored the coasts of Alaska and Siberia. Between 1797 and 1798 he conducted a hydrographic survey of the Black Sea.
The maritime European exploration of Australia consisted of several waves of European seafarers who sailed the edges of the Australian continent. Dutch navigators were the first Europeans known to have explored and mapped the Australian coastline. The first documented encounter was that of Dutch navigator Willem Janszoon, in 1606. Dutch seafarers also visited the west and north coasts of the continent, as did French explorers.
Geographical exploration, sometimes considered the default meaning for the more general term exploration, refers to the practice of discovering remote lands and regions of the planet Earth. It is studied by geographers and historians.
The Age of Discovery, also known as the Age of Exploration, was part of the early modern period and largely overlapped with the Age of Sail. It was a period from approximately the late 15th century to the 17th century, during which seafarers from a number of European countries explored, colonized, and conquered regions across the globe. The Age of Discovery was a transformative period in world history when previously isolated parts of the world became connected to form the world-system and laid the groundwork for globalization. The extensive overseas exploration, particularly the opening of maritime routes to the Indies and the European colonization of the Americas by the Spanish and Portuguese, later joined by the English, French and Dutch, spurred in the International global trade. The interconnected global economy of the 21st century has its origins in the expansion of trade networks during this era.
The human history of the west coast of North America is believed to stretch back to the arrival of the earliest people over the Bering Strait, or alternately along the ice free coastal islands of British Columbia (See, through the development of significant pre-Columbian cultures and population densities, to the arrival of the European explorers and colonizers. The west coast of North America today is home to some of the largest and most important companies in the world, as well as being a center of world culture.
Ocean exploration is a part of oceanography describing the exploration of ocean surfaces. Notable explorations were undertaken by the Greeks, the Phoenicians, the Romans, the Polynesians, Phytheas, the Vikings, Arabs and the Portuguese. Scientific investigations began with early scientists such as James Cook, Charles Darwin, and Edmund Halley. Ocean exploration itself coincided with the developments in shipbuilding, diving, navigation, depth, measurement, exploration, and cartography.
The Maritime history of Europe represents the era of recorded human interaction with the sea in the northwestern region of Eurasia in areas that include shipping and shipbuilding, shipwrecks, naval battles, and military installations and lighthouses constructed to protect or aid navigation and the development of Europe. Europe is situated between several navigable seas and intersected by navigable rivers running into them in a way which greatly facilitated the influence of maritime traffic and commerce. Great battles have been fought in the seas off of Europe that changed the course of history forever, including the Battle of Salamis in the Mediterranean, the Battle of Gravelines at the eastern end of the English Channel in the summer of 1588, in which the “Invincible” Spanish Armada was defeated, the Battle of Jutland in World War I, and World War II’s U-boat war.
Between 1492 and 1504, the Italian navigator and explorer Christopher Columbus led four transatlantic maritime expeditions in the name of the Catholic Monarchs of Spain to the Caribbean and to Central and South America. These voyages led to the widespread knowledge of the New World. This breakthrough inaugurated the period known as the Age of Discovery, which saw the colonization of the Americas, a related biological exchange, and trans-Atlantic trade. These events, the effects and consequences of which persist to the present, are often cited as the beginning of the modern era.
During the Age of Discovery, the Spanish Empire undertook several expeditions to the Pacific Northwest of North America. Spanish claims to the region date to the papal bull of 1493, and the Treaty of Tordesillas signed in 1494. In 1513, this claim was reinforced by Spanish explorer Vasco Núñez de Balboa, the first European to sight the Pacific Ocean, when he claimed all lands adjoining this ocean for the Spanish Crown. Spain only started to colonize the claimed territory north of present-day Mexico in the 18th century, when it settled the northern coast of Las Californias.
The Great Northern Expedition or Second Kamchatka Expedition was one of the largest exploration enterprises in history, mapping most of the Arctic coast of Siberia and some parts of the North American coastline, greatly reducing "white areas" on maps. It was conceived by Russian Emperor Peter the Great, but implemented by Russian Empresses Anna and Elizabeth. The main organiser and leader of the expedition was Vitus Bering, who earlier had been commissioned by Peter I to lead the First Kamchatka Expedition. The Second Kamchatka Expedition lasted roughly from 1733 to 1743 and later was called the Great Northern Expedition due to the immense scale of its achievements.
Portuguese maritime exploration resulted in the numerous territories and maritime routes recorded by the Portuguese as a result of their intensive maritime journeys during the 15th and 16th centuries. Portuguese sailors were at the vanguard of European exploration, chronicling and mapping the coasts of Africa and Asia, then known as the East Indies, and Canada and Brazil, in what came to be known as the Age of Discovery.
Farthest South refers to the most southerly latitudes reached by explorers before the first successful expedition to the South Pole in 1911.
Maritime history dates back thousands of years. In ancient maritime history, evidence of maritime trade between civilizations dates back at least two millennia. The first prehistoric boats are presumed to have been dugout canoes which were developed independently by various Stone Age populations. In ancient history, various vessels were used for coastal fishing and travel. A mesolithic boatyard has been found from the Isle of Wight in Britain
Major explorations of Earth continued after the Age of Discovery. By the early seventeenth century, vessels were sufficiently well built and their navigators competent enough to travel to virtually anywhere on the planet by sea. In the 17th century, Dutch explorers such as Willem Jansz and Abel Tasman explored the coasts of Australia. Spanish expeditions from Peru explored the South Pacific and discovered archipelagos such as Vanuatu and the Pitcairn Islands. Luis Vaez de Torres chartered the coasts of New Guinea and the Solomon Islands, and discovered the strait that bears his name. European naval exploration mapped the western and northern coasts of Australia, but the east coast had to wait for over a century. Eighteenth-century British explorer James Cook mapped much of Polynesia and traveled as far north as Alaska and as far south as the Antarctic Circle. In the later 18th century, the Pacific became a focus of renewed interest, with Spanish expeditions, followed by Northern European ones, reaching the coasts of northern British Columbia and Alaska.
The maritime fur trade, a ship-based fur trade system, focused largely on acquiring furs of sea otters and other animals from the indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast and natives of Alaska. Entrepreneurs also exploited fur-bearing skins from the wider Pacific and from the Southern Ocean.
Early Polynesian explorers reached nearly all Pacific islands by 1200 CE, followed by Asian navigation in Southeast Asia and the West Pacific. During the Middle Ages, Muslim traders linked the Middle East and East Africa to the Asian Pacific coasts, reaching southern China and much of the Malay Archipelago. Direct European contact with the Pacific began in 1512, with the Portuguese encountering its western edges, soon followed by the Spanish arriving from the American coast.
The second voyage of James Cook, from 1772 to 1775, commissioned by the British government with advice from the Royal Society, was designed to circumnavigate the globe as far south as possible to finally determine whether there was any great southern landmass, or Terra Australis. On his first voyage, Cook had demonstrated by circumnavigating New Zealand that it was not attached to a larger landmass to the south, and he charted almost the entire eastern coastline of Australia, yet Terra Australis was believed to lie further south. Alexander Dalrymple and others of the Royal Society still believed that this massive southern continent should exist. After a delay brought about by the botanist Joseph Banks' unreasonable demands, the ships Resolution and Adventure were fitted for the voyage and set sail for the Antarctic in July 1772.
João da Gama was a Portuguese explorer and colonial administrator in the Far East in the last quarter of the 16th century. He was the grandson of Vasco da Gama. João da Gama sailed from Macau to northeast and rounded Japan by north. He crossed the Pacific Ocean at the northernmost latitudes taken until then by Europeans. Forced by the circumstances of his voyage, he became also a circumnavigator. The lands northeast of Japan which João da Gama discovered were the target of legend and speculation in the centuries that followed, inspiring its search by European powers.
The first voyage of Kerguelen was an expedition of the French Navy to the southern Indian Ocean conducted by the fluyts Fortune and Gros Ventre, under Lieutenant Yves-Joseph de Kerguelen-Trémarec. The aims of the expedition were to survey recently discovered sea routes between Isle de France and India, to seek the postulated Terra Australis Incognita, and to explore Australia.
