page_title: Timeline of European exploration
section_title: 17th century
hierarchical_section_title: Timeline of European exploration / 17th century
caption_attribution_description: Коч. Копия. Красноярский краеведческий музей
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: 1600–01 – Prince Miron Shakhovskoi and D. Khripunov descend the Ob to the Ob Estuary and ascend the Taz River, establishing the ostrog of Mangazeya about 161 kilometres (100 mi) to 240 kilometres (150 mi) from its mouth.
  1602–06 – Portuguese missionary Bento de Góis travels overland from India to China, via Afghanistan and the Pamirs.
  1605 – Ketsk serving men ascend the Ket, portage to the Yenisei, and descend it to its confluence with the Sym.
  1606 – Dutch navigator Willem Janszoon discovers Australia at the mouth of the Pennefather River on the western coast of the Cape York Peninsula, exploring its coast from Badu Island south to Cape Keerweer (13°58′S).
  1606 – Pedro Fernandes de Queirós discovers Espiritu Santo, the largest island in what is now the nation of Vanuatu.
  1606 – Luís Vaz de Torres sails through the strait that now bears his name.
  1607 – Mangazeyan promyshlenniki and traders reach the lower Yenisei, establish Turukhansk, and ascend the Lower Tunguska, while Ketsk serving men ascend the Yenisei to the Angara, which they also ascend.
  1607 – Henry Hudson coasts the east coast of Greenland, naming "Hold-with-Hope" (around 73°N).
  1609 – Hudson sails the Halve Maen up the Hudson River as far north as present-day Albany, New York.
  1610 – Étienne Brûlé ascends the Ottawa River and reaches Lake Nipissing and Georgian Bay in Lake Huron.
  1610 – Kondratiy Kurochkin leads an expedition, sailing in kochi, from Turukhansk to the mouth of the Yenisei and east to the mouth of the Pyasina on the Taymyr Peninsula.
  1610 – A detachment from Mangazeya ascends the Yenisei a further 640 kilometres (400 mi) to its confluence with the Sym.
  1610–11 – Hudson sails through Hudson Strait into Hudson Bay, where he overwinters in James Bay.
  1611 – Mangazeyan men reach the Khatanga.
  1612–13 – Thomas Button is the first to explore the western shores of Hudson Bay, where he winters in the mouth of the Nelson River; also discovers Coats and Southampton Islands.
  1614 – Whalers discover Jan Mayen.
  1615–16 – Étienne Brûlé sights the western shore of Lake Ontario, descends the Niagara River, explores what are now parts of modern New York and Pennsylvania, and descends the Susquehanna River to Chesapeake Bay.
  1616 – Jacob Le Maire and Willem Schouten discover and name Le Maire Strait, Staten Island, and Cape Horn; also discover Tonga (Niuafo'ou, Niuatoputapu, and Tafahi), Futuna and Alofi (in modern Wallis and Futuna), and several islands in the Tuamotu (Takaroa, Takapoto, Manihi, Ahe and Rangiroa) and Bismarck Archipelagos (including New Hanover and New Ireland).
  1616 – Robert Bylot and William Baffin reach 77°30′ N, enter Baffin Bay, discover Smith, Jones, and Lancaster Sounds and sight the coasts of Ellesmere, Devon, and Bylot Islands.
  1616 – Dirk Hartog explores some 576 kilometres (358 mi) of coastline (the coast of Western Australia from about 22° to 28° S), discovering Dirk Hartog Island and Shark Bay.
  1617 – English walrus hunters sight the southern coast of "Sir Thomas Smith's Island" (Nordaustlandet).
  1618 – Spanish missionary Pedro Páez is believed to be the first European to see and describe the source of the Blue Nile in Ethiopia.
  1618 – Lenaert Jacobszoon discovers an "island" at 22°S (the coast of Western Australia from Point Cloates to North West Cape).
  1619 – Frederick de Houtman sights the coast of Western Australia near Fremantle and sails along the coast north for over 640 kilometres (400 mi).
  1620 – Mangazeyan serving men reach the Vilyuy River and descend it to its confluence with the Lena.
  1621–23 – Étienne Brûlé and his companion Grenolle travel along the North Channel of Lake Huron (probably sighting Manitoulin Island) to "Grand Lac" (Lake Superior) via St. Mary's River.
  1622 – The Dutch ship Leeuwin discovers land near present-day Cape Leeuwin.
  1623 – Jan Carstenszoon discovers the western coast of Cape York Peninsula from Cape Keerweer to the southern mouth of the Gilbert River; while his consort Willem Joosten van Colster discovers "Arnhemsland" and "Speultsland" (modern Arnhem Land and perhaps Groote Eylandt).
  1624 –
caption: A 17th-century koch in a museum in Krasnoyarsk. Kochi were used to explore the Siberian watershed and coasts by men such as Kurochkin, Perfilyev and Dezhnev.
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