List of maritime explorers

This is a list of notable maritime explorers throughout the history of Humanity.

Purpose of the list

The purpose of the list is to enable the reader to navigate between Wikipedia entries of diverse maritime explorers from a central encyclopedic point of reference.

Definition

A communication with other populations, commercial trade, and military missions such as establishment of colonies.

List scope

Necessarily the list can only relate to individuals and their missions which used watercraft for much of their duration. Maritime exploration has not diminished in importance with the emergence of the aircraft, and remains an important part of contemporary scientific research.

Although human maritime exploration is very ancient, only explorers known in recorded histories of their cultures are noted here. As such they represent three global maritime regions (in English alphabetic order): the Atlantic Ocean, the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean and their sub-regional seas as points of origin of the exploration missions.

Notability criteria

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.

Although many maritime explorers also used force as part of their missions, these are not considered as a reason for exclusion from the list because it represents a subjective contemporary view of the use of force.

Ocean explorers

Nationality	Sailed for	Name	First voyage of exploration	Last voyage of exploration	Arctic[1]	North Atlantic	Indian	Pacific	South Atlantic	Southern
Portuguese		de Abreu, António
Portuguese		de Albuquerque, Afonso
Portuguese		de Alenquer,Pêro
Portuguese		de Almeida, Francisco
Portuguese		Álvares, Jorge
Portuguese		de Azambuja, Diogo
Portuguese		de Barcelos, Pêro
Newfoundlander[2]		Bartlett, Robert
Estonian[3]		von Bellingshausen, Fabian Gottlieb						*[4]
Danish[5]		Bering, Vitus						*
French		de Bougainville, Louis Antoine
British		Byron, John
Italian	Henry VII of England	Cabot, John
Italian	Henry VII of England and Ferdinand II of Aragon	Cabot, Sebastian
Portuguese		Cabral, Pedro Álvares
Portuguese[6]		Cabrilho, João Rodrígues
Venetian	Portugal	Cadamosto. Alvise
Portuguese		Caminha, Álvaro
Portuguese		de Caminha, Pêro Vaz
Portuguese		Cão,Diogo
French		Cartier, Jacques
		Cavendish, Thomas
French		de Champlain, Samuel
Portuguese		Coelho, Gonçalo
Portuguese		Coelho, Nicolau
Italian	Spain	Columbus, Christopher
English	Britain	Cook, James	1768–71	1776–79				3		1
Portuguese		Corte-Real, Gaspar
Portuguese		Corte-Real, Miguel
Portuguese		da Cunha, Tristão
		Dampier, William
English		Davis, John
		Dezhnev, Semyon						*
Portuguese		Dias, Bartolomeu
Portuguese		Dias, Dinis
Portuguese		Dias, Diogo
Portuguese		Dias, Pêro
Portuguese		do Pó, Fernão
English		Drake,Francis	1577–81	1577–81			1	1	1
Portuguese		Eanes, Gil
		Ericson, Leif
Portuguese		Escobar, Pedro
Portuguese		Fernandes, Álvaro
English		Flinders, Matthew
		Frobisher, Martin
Portuguese		da Gama, Estêvão
Portuguese		da Gama, Paulo
Portuguese		da Gama, Vasco
		Gilbert, Humphrey
		Golovnin, Vasily						*
Portuguese		Gonçalves, André
Portuguese		Gonçalves, Antão
Portuguese		Gonçalves, Lopes
Portuguese		Grego, João
		Hudson, Henry
Portuguese		Infante, João
German		von Kotzebue, Otto						*
		Kruzenshtern, Ivan Fedorovich						*
French		de Lapérouse,Jean François de Galaup,comte
Portuguese		Lavrador, João Fernandes
		Lazarev, Mikhail Petrovich						*
Portuguese		de Lemos, Gaspar
		Litke, Fyodor Petrovich						*
Portuguese		Magellan, Ferdinand
		le Maire, Jacob
Portuguese		Martins, Álvaro
Portuguese		Mascarenhas, Pedro
Spanish		de Mendaña, Álvaro
Genoese	Portugal	Noli, António
Portuguese		de Noronha, Fernão
Portuguese		da Nova, João
		Paulmyer, Binot
Portuguese		Pereira, Duarte Pacheco
Portuguese		Perestrelo, Bartolomeu
		Pining, Didrik
Portuguese		Pinto, Fernão Mendes
Portuguese		Pires, Luís
Portuguese		de Queirós, Pedro Fernandes
Portuguese		Rodrigues, Diogo
Portuguese		de Santarém, João
		Schouten, Willem
Irish		Shackleton, Ernest
Portuguese		Silves, Diogo
Portuguese		de Sintra, Pedro
Portuguese[7]		Soromenho, Sebastião Rodrígues
Portuguese		de Sousa, Martim Afonso
		Tasman, Abel
Portuguese		Teixeira, Tristão Vaz
Portuguese or Spanish (Galician)		de Torres, Luis Váez
Portuguese		Tristão, Nuno
		Vancouver, George
Portuguese		Vaz Corte-Real, João
Portuguese		Velho, Gonçalo
		da Verrazzano, Giovanni
Italian		Vespucci, Amerigo
German		Wallis, Samuel
		Wrangel, Ferdinand Petrovich						*
Portuguese		Zarco, João Gonçalves
Chinese		Zheng He						*

See also

• explorers
• polar explorers
• List of Russian explorers

References and notes

1. The numbers indicate the number of exploratory voyages. A ship sailing from port through familiar seas does not start exploring until terra incognita is sighted, or a new sea is sailed confirming the lack of land — as in the case of James Cook's second voyage, when he could confirm that the Terra Australis land mass did not exist in the regions of the Southern Ocean that he sailed.
2. Newfoundland then part of the British Empire
3. Estonia - then part of the Russian Empire
4. Indicates a voyage
5. Sailed for the Russian Empire
6. In some sources Spanish
7. In some sources Spanish