page_title: Exploration of the Pacific
section_title: South America
hierarchical_section_title: Exploration of the Pacific / European exploration / Iberian pioneers / South America
caption_attribution_description: A New And Accvrat Map Of The World.
context_page_description: Polynesians reached nearly all the Pacific islands by about 1200 AD, followed by Asian navigation in Southeast Asia and West Pacific. Around the Middle Ages Muslim traders linked the Middle East and East Africa to the Asian Pacific coasts. The direct contact of European fleets with the Pacific began in 1512, with the Portuguese, on its western edges, followed by the Spanish discovery of the Pacific from the American coast.
  In 1513, six years before Magellan, Spanish explorer Vasco Núñez de Balboa crossed the Isthmus of Panama and saw the Pacific Ocean.
  In 1521 a Spanish expedition led by the Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan was the first known crossing of the Pacific Ocean, who then named it the "peaceful sea". Starting in 1565 with the voyage of Andres de Urdaneta and for the next 250 years, the Spanish controlled the transpacific trade with the Manila galleons that crossed from Mexico to the Philippines and vice versa, until 1815. Other expeditions from Mexico and Peru discovered various archipelagos in the North and South Pacific. In the 17th and 18th centuries, other European powers sent expeditions to the Pacific, namely the Dutch Republic, England, France, and Russia.
context_section_description: In 1513, six years before Magellan, Spanish explorer Vasco Núñez de Balboa crossed the Isthmus of Panama and saw the Pacific Ocean. In 1517-18 two ships were built on the Pacific coast. In 1522 Pascual de Andagoya sailed the coast as far as Ecuador. In 1532 Francisco Pizarro conquered Peru. A regular trade developed that carried Peruvian silver up the coast to Panama where it was carried overland to the Caribbean and part to Spain. Spanish settlement extended as far south as central Chile. In 1557-8 Juan Fernández Ladrillero discovered the Juan Fernandez islands and explored the Chilean coast down to the Strait of Magellan.
caption: "A New and Accurate Map of the World" of 1627 possibly by John Speed. Western North America north of Mexico a guess; A Strait of Anian at Bering Strait; Japan and other Pacific Islands distorted; Only the north coast of New Guinea; No Australia; Huge 'Southern Unknowne Land' in the south.
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