Cape Palmas
In 1458 Prince Henry the Navigator of Portugal sent his captain Diogo Gomes (1440–1482) on a voyage of discovery and trade that took him and his crew as far south down the coast of West Africa as the mouth of the cape and estuary, which marks the point where the direction of the coastline of West Africa ceases to have any southerly component, but turns definitively to the east, beginning the Gulf of Guinea. Gomes named this geographic feature Cabo das Palmas, i.e. "Cape of the Palms", which was later semi-Anglicized to "Cape Palmas". The river was named "Rio das Palmas", later to be called the Hoffman River. The name Cape Palmas (while Liberia was still known as the Malaguetta Coast in Europe) first appeared on various maps of Africa in Latin and later numerous European languages. The earliest map of Africa with the name Cape Palmas is Cantino planisphere completed in 1502.