page_title: Timeline of European exploration
section_title: 16th century
hierarchical_section_title: Timeline of European exploration / 16th century
context_page_description: This timeline of European exploration lists major geographic discoveries and other firsts credited to or involving Europeans during the Age of Discovery and the following centuries, between the years AD 1418 and 1957.
  Despite several significant transoceanic and transcontinental explorations by European civilizations in the preceding centuries, the precise geography of the Earth outside of Europe was largely unknown to Europeans before the 15th century, when technological advances as well as the rise of colonialism, mercantilism, and a host of other social, cultural, and economic changes made it possible to organize large-scale exploratory expeditions to uncharted parts of the globe.
  The Age of Discovery arguably began in the early 15th century with the rounding of the feared Cape Bojador and Portuguese exploration of the west coast of Africa, while in the last decade of the century the Spanish sent expeditions far across the Atlantic, where the Americas would eventually be discovered, and the Portuguese discovered a sea route to India.
context_section_description: 1500 – Vicente Yáñez Pinzón reaches the northeast coast of what today is Brazil at a cape he names "Santa Maria de la Consolación" (Cabo de Santo Agostinho) and sails fifty miles up a river he names the "Marañón" (Amazon).
  1500 – Pedro Álvares Cabral makes the "official" discovery of Brazil, leading the first expedition that united Europe, America, Africa, and Asia.
  1500 – João Fernandes reaches Cape Farewell, Greenland ("Terra do Lavrador", or Land of the Husbandman).
  1500–02 – Gaspar and Miguel Corte Real discover and name the coasts of "Terra Verde" (likely Newfoundland) and Labrador.
  1500–01 – Diogo Dias discovers Madagascar and reaches the gate of the Red Sea, the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait.
  1500 – Rodrigo de Bastidas explores the Colombian coast from Cabo de la Vela to the Gulf of Urabá.
  1501–02 – Gonçalo Coelho discovers "Rio de Janeiro" (Guanabara Bay).
  1502–03 – On his fourth voyage to the Americas, Christopher Columbus explores the North American mainland from Guanaja off modern Honduras to the present-day border of Panama and Colombia.
  1505 – Juan de Bermúdez discovers Bermuda.
  1506 – Lourenço de Almeida reaches the Maldives and Sri Lanka.
  1506 – Tristão da Cunha discovers the remote island of Tristan da Cunha in the South Atlantic Ocean.
  1509 – Diogo Lopes de Sequeira reaches Sumatra and Malacca.
  1511 – Duarte Fernandes leads a diplomatic mission to Ayutthaya Kingdom (Siam or Thailand).
  1511 – Rui Nunes da Cunha leads a diplomatic mission to Pegu (Burma or Myanmar).
  1511–12 – João de Lisboa and Estevão de Fróis discover the "Cape of Santa Maria" (Punta Del Este) in the River Plate, exploring its estuary, and traveling as far south as the Gulf of San Matias at 42ºS, in present-day Uruguay and Argentina (penetrating 300 km (186 mi) "around the Gulf").
  1511–12 – António de Abreu sails through the Strait of Malacca, between Sumatra and Bangka, and along the coasts of Java, Bali, Lombok, Sumbawa, and Flores to the "Spice Islands" (Maluku).
  1513 – Jorge Álvares becomes the first European to reach China by sea, landing on Nei Lingding Island at the Pearl River Delta.
  1513 – Vasco Núñez de Balboa crosses the Isthmus of Panama and reaches the Bay of San Miguel, discovering the "Mar del Sur" (Pacific Ocean).
  1513 – Juan Ponce de León discovers "La Florida" (Florida) and the Yucatán.
  1514–15 – António Fernandes reaches present-day Zimbabwe.
  1515 – Gonzalo de Badajoz crosses the Isthmus of Panama at the site of Nombre de Dios, reaching as far as the interior of the Azuero Peninsula.
  1516 – Juan Díaz de Solís explores the River Plate estuary and names it "La Mar Dulce" ("The Fresh-Water Sea").
  1516 – Portuguese traders land in Da Nang, Champa, naming it Cochinchina (modern Vietnam).
  1518 – Lourenço Gomes reaches Borneo.
  1518 – Juan de Grijalva explores the Mexican coast from "Patouchan" (Champotón) to just north of the Pánuco River.
  1519 – Hernán Cortés travels from Villa Rica de la Vera Cruz to the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan on Lake Texcoco.
  1519 – Alonzo Alvarez de Pineda sails around the Gulf of Mexico to the Pánuco, proving its insularity; also discovers the "Father of Waters" (the Mississippi).
  1519 – Gaspar de Espinosa sails west along the west coasts of modern Panama and Costa Rica as far as the Gulf of Nicoya.
  1519–22 – Ferdinand Magellan's expedition completes the first circumnavigation of the globe, exploring the coast of Patagonia and discovering and traversing the Strait of Magellan.
  1520–21 – João Alvares Fagundes explores Burgeo and Saint Pierre and Miquelon in Newfoundland, and Nova Scotia.
  1521 – Francisco Gordillo and Pedro de Quexos find the mouth of a river they name "Rio de San Juan Bautista" (perhaps Winyah Bay at the mouth of the Pee Dee River in modern South Carolina).
  1521 – Cristóvão Jacques explores the Plate River and discovers the Parana River, entering it for about 23 leagues (around 140 km), to near the present city of Rosario.
  1522 – Gil González Dávila explores inland from the Gulf of Nicoya, discovering Lake Nicaragua, while his pilot Andrés Niño explores along the coast to the west, discover
caption: Map of the island city Tenochtitlán and Mexico gulf made by one of Cortés' men, 1524, Newberry Library, Chicago
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