European exploration
Overseas voyages westward
European exploration refers to the period from the 15th through 17th centuries when European nations sent expeditions to map and claim territories across the globe.
The term typically covers voyages to the Americas, Africa, Asia, and the Pacific—driven by trade, religious conversion, and imperial expansion.
Also called the Age of Discovery or Age of Exploration, though these names are criticized for centering European perspective on lands already inhabited and known to their peoples.
- mapSpatial representation of terrain
- Christopher ColumbusNavigator who found the Americas
- AmericasWestern Hemisphere landmasses
- triangular tradeThree-legged Atlantic exchange system
- archipelagoChain of scattered islands
Leif Erikson · cartography · Pacific Ocean · scurvy · Ferdinand Magellan · Columbian Exchange · Henry the Navigator · Marco Polo · spice trade · Amerigo Vespucci · Age of Discovery · Gold · sail · indigenous · native peoples · Vasco da Gama · sea route · tall ships
- Central AfricaCongo, Belgian Congo, rainforest, tropical rainforest, Chad
- MelanesiaPapua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, New Caledonia, Fiji
European explorationindigenous resistance
First peoples opposing colonization
native sovereignty · anti-colonial movement · decolonization · territorial defense · ancestral homeland