Exploration of the Pacific

Direct European contact with the Pacific began in 1512, with the Portuguese encountering its western edges, soon followed by the Spanish arriving from the American coast.

In 1513, Spanish explorer Vasco Núñez de Balboa crossed the Isthmus of Panama and encountered the Pacific Ocean, calling it the South Sea.

Starting in 1565 with the voyage of Andres de Urdaneta, the Spanish controlled transpacific trade for 250 years; Manila galleons would cross from Mexico to the Philippines, and vice versa, until 1815.

Thor Heyerdahl's Kon-Tiki expedition successfully demonstrated that the trip from the Americas to Polynesia using only materials and technology available at the time was at least possible, even if highly improbable.

[4] The first contact of European navigators with the western edge of the Pacific Ocean was made by the Portuguese expeditions of António de Abreu and Francisco Serrão, via the Lesser Sunda Islands, to the Maluku Islands, in 1512,[5][6] and with Jorge Álvares's expedition to southern China in 1513,[7] both ordered by Afonso de Albuquerque from Malacca.

The Spanish explorer Balboa was the first European to sight the Pacific from America in 1513 after his expedition crossed the Isthmus of Panama and reached a new ocean.

Starting in 1519, Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan sailed the Pacific East to West on a Castilian (Spanish) expedition, which concluded later with the first world circumnavigation by the Basque sailor Juan Sebastián Elcano.

Magellan called the ocean Pacífico (or "Pacific" meaning, "peaceful") because, after sailing through the stormy seas off Patagonia, the expedition found calm waters.

When Pedro Álvares Cabral, en route to Asia via the Atlantic and the Indian oceans, reached Brazil, in 1500, the true extent of the Americas began to become known.

In 1589, João da Gama reached Hokkaido and possibly sighted the Kuril Islands, crossing the Pacific further north of the routes usually taken until then.

It is significant that the Russian and Dutch trades were never linked since Siberian furs might easily have been exported to China at great profit.

One surviving ship returned west across the Indian Ocean and the other went north in the hope of finding the westerlies and reaching Mexico.

In 1565 (44 years later), Andrés de Urdaneta found a wind system that would reliably blow a ship eastward back to the Americas.

From then until 1815 the annual Manila Galleons crossed the Pacific from Mexico to the Philippines and back, exchanging Mexican silver for spices and porcelain.

In 1513, six years before Magellan, Spanish explorer Vasco Núñez de Balboa crossed the Isthmus of Panama and saw the Pacific Ocean.

One of his separated ships under Luis Vaz de Torres sailed west and discovered the strait that bears his name sighting the northern tip of Australia.

In 1525, Francisco de Hoces, while trying to enter the Strait as part of the Loaisa expedition, was blown south by a storm and saw what he thought was land's end.

In 1619, the Garcia de Nodal expedition followed the Dutch and proved that Tierra del Fuego was an island by circumnavigating it.

Since the Strait of Magellan is narrow and hard to navigate Cape Horn became the standard route until the opening of the Panama Canal.

In 1595, Sebastian Rodriguez Cermeño (Sebastião Rodrigues Soromenho), commander of the Manila galleon San Agustín, attempted an exploration of the California coast.

He reached the continent between Point St. George and Trinidad Head in California, but the galleon was later wrecked in a storm off Drake's Bay and the survivors had to sail the rest of the way back to Mexico in a small launch.

The Portolà expedition of 1769 began the land exploration of Alta California, following the coast as far north as San Francisco Bay and using the reports of Cermeño and Vizcaíno for guidance.

The first European to definitely see Australia was Willem Janszoon who in February 1606 reached the Cape York Peninsula and thought it was part of New Guinea.

One of the Kuril Islands named "Companies Landt" by Vries grew into a large mass attached to North America.

There was an overgrown Puget Sound called "Grande Mer de l'Ouest" possibly connected to Hudson Bay.

San Francisco Bay was discovered in 1769 by Gaspar de Portolà from the landward side because its mouth is not obvious from the sea.

An expedition led by Juan Francisco de la Bodega y Quadra sailed north to Nootka and reached Prince William Sound.

He seized a British ship which led to the Nootka Crisis and Spanish recognition of non-Spanish trade on the northwest coast.

About 1805 Adam Johann von Krusenstern was apparently the first Russian to reach eastern Siberia by sea from European Russia.

Hong Kong became a colony in 1839 during the First Opium War, which was also the first time that a large European military and naval force appeared in the Pacific.

Polynesian expansion
Spanish explorations and routes across the Pacific Ocean.
Portuguese trade routes (blue) and Spanish trade routes (white) in the 16th century.
Western Islands reached from South America
"A New and Accurate Map of the World" of 1627, possibly by John Speed . Western North America north of Mexico is a guess; the Bering Strait is described as the Strait of Anian; Japan and other Pacific Islands are distorted; only the north coast of New Guinea is depicted; no Australia is shown; and there is a huge 'Southern Unknowne Land' in the south.
Major Islands. Off the map to the east of the Cook Islands are the Society Islands with Tahiti and then the Tuamoto Archipelago with the Marquesas to its north.
Russian posts closely followed the natural distribution of the fur-bearing Sea Otter
The routes of Captain James Cook's voyages. The first voyage is shown in red , second voyage in green , and third voyage in blue . The route of Cook's crew following his death is shown as a dashed blue line.