List of explorations

This is a list of some of the most important explorations of State Societies, in chronological order:

Before 1400

Exploration	When	Who (explorer)
Northwest African coast (West Africa)	about 500 BC	Hanno the Navigator
The Mediterranean Sea	5th century BC	Himilco the Navigator
Around western Europe to Thule Island	about 330 BC	Pytheas of Marseilles
Hawaiian Islands	By c. 800	Hawaiʻiloa (mythical)
Greenland, Iceland, and Faroes	900	Gunnbjörn Ulfsson
Americas (North America)	999	Leif Ericson
Brazil (South America) - controversial	c. 14th century CE	Abu Bakr II
Sahelian kingdoms	1351–1354	Ibn Battuta

15th century

Exploration	When	Who (explorer)	Context
Great permanent wind wheel of Volta do Mar, the North Atlantic Gyre. Recognition of the Sargasso Sea, Madeira, Azores and West African coast. Cape Verde.	1427–1460	Several navigators: Portuguese or serving Portugal, most under the sponsorship of Henry the Navigator	Portuguese maritime exploration
Galápagos Islands or Rapa Nui	c. 1480	Tupaq Inka Yupanki. 1594–1597. Rediscovered by the Spanish.	"Third Inca expansion" [es]
Congo River, Angola and Namibia	1482–1485	Diogo Cão	Portuguese maritime exploration
South Africa. Connected the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean. South Atlantic Volta do Mar winds.	1482–1485	Bartolomeu Dias	Portuguese maritime exploration
Caribbean, Venezuela (South America) and Central America. Use and development of the North Atlantic routes.	1493–1502	Christopher Columbus	Spanish colonization of the Americas
Atlantic Ocean (outer routes) and Indian Ocean, sea route to India (Europe to Asia)	1497–1499	Vasco da Gama	Portuguese maritime exploration
Brazil, South Atlantic Volta do Mar, Indian Ocean, Madagascar, gate of the Red Sea (Bab-el-Mandeb Strait); India. Voyage that united Europe, Americas, Africa and Asia.	1500–1501	Pedro Álvares Cabral and Diogo Dias, among others	Portuguese maritime exploration Portuguese colonization of the Americas

16th century

Exploration	When	Who (explorer)	Context
Timor, Moluccas (Australasia - Pacific Ocean)	1512–1513	António de Abreu and Francisco Serrão	Portuguese maritime exploration
Circumnavigation of the globe. Connection from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean (Americas to Asia).	1519–1522	Ferdinand Magellan and Juan Sebastián Elcano	Spanish colonization of the Americas Spanish colonization of the Philippines
Mexico	1519–1521	Hernán Cortés	Spanish colonization of the Americas Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire
Brazil, Paraguay, Bolivia and east of the Inca Empire	1525–1527	Aleixo Garcia	Spanish colonization of the Americas
Traveled across the Southwest of North America (completely)	1528	Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca	Spanish colonization of the Americas
Peru, Inca Empire and Ecuador	1531–1534	Francisco Pizarro	Spanish colonization of the Americas Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire
Ecuador and Brazil. Length of the Amazon River.	1531–1534	Francisco de Orellana	Spanish colonization of the Americas
Canada, Saint Lawrence River	1534–1542	Jacques Cartier	French colonization of the Americas
Bolivia, Argentine Northwest, Chile	1535–1537	Diego de Almagro	Spanish colonization of the Americas Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire
Colombia, Conquest of the Muisca	1536–1537	Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada	Spanish colonization of the Americas
Pacific Ocean's Volta do Mar (Asia to the Americas)	1564–1565	Andrés de Urdaneta	Spanish colonization of the Americas Spanish colonization of the Philippines
North, Canada (Hudson Bay)	1574–1631	Henry Hudson
North	1594–1597	Willem Barents

17th century

Exploration	When	Who (explorer)
Siberia and Pacific coast	1649–1641	Ivan Yuryevich Moskvitin
Australia	c. 1640	Makassar People before. Explored by Abel Tasman.
Tasmania, New Zealand	1642–1643	Abel Tasman
Brazil (circumnavigation), Paraguay, Bolivia and Peru. Connected the River Plate Basin to the Andes and to the mouth of the Amazon River.	1648–1651	António Raposo Tavares
Western Patagonia	[1669–1673	Nicolás Mascardi
Western Patagonia	1675–1676	Antonio de Vea

18th century

Exploration	When	Who (explorer)
Oceania	1768–1779	James Cook
North Pacific, western Alaska, Far East Eurasian Coast	1771	Moric Benovsky
Central America and Latin America	1799–1803	Alexander von Humboldt

19th century

Exploration	When	Who (explorer)
Northwest Plateau of North America	1804–1806	Lewis and Clark Expedition
The North Magnetic Pole	1831-06-01	James Clark Ross
Interior of Africa	1851–1873	David Livingstone
The Burke and Wills expedition (Central Australia)	1860–1861	Robert O'Hara Burke and William John Wills
Inland eastern Patagonia	1875–1877]]	Perito Moreno
Exploration of the Zambeze river region, Central Africa, Angola, Mozambique, Zambia, Zaire	1877	Serpa Pinto
The Northern Sea Route	1878	Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld

20thth century

Exploration	When	Who (explorer)
The South Magnetic Pole	January 16, 1909	Douglas Mawson, Edgeworth David, and Alistair Mackay
The North Pole	April 6, 1909	Robert Peary
The South Pole	December 14, 1911	Roald Amundsen
The South Pole	January 17, 1912	Robert Falcon Scott
Mount Everest summit	May 29, 1953	Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay
The Moon	July 20, 1969	Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins, and Buzz Aldrin (Apollo 11)
Mars	1960–present	NASA and other space agency exploration robots

See also

• Age of Discovery
• Exploration of Australia
• Geographical exploration
• List of explorers
• List of lost expeditions
• List of Russian explorers
• Exploration of the High Alps
• Portugal in the period of discoveries
• Chronology of European exploration of Asia