When was the Age of Exploration?

The Age of Exploration — also called the Age of Discovery — is conventionally dated from the early 15th century to the early 17th century, though its precise boundaries depend on how broadly or narrowly the period is defined.

The earliest phase began in 1415, when Portugal captured Ceuta in North Africa, and continued through the decades of Portuguese exploration along the African coast sponsored by Prince Henry the Navigator (d. 1460). Portuguese mariners systematically pushed southward, driven by a combination of crusading zeal, commercial ambition, and geographic curiosity. Key milestones include the rounding of Cape Bojador (1434), reaching the Gold Coast (1471), and Bartolomeu Dias's rounding of the Cape of Good Hope (1488).

The period of most intense exploration came between 1492 and 1522. Columbus's first voyage to the Americas (1492) opened an entirely new hemisphere to European awareness. Vasco da Gama's voyage to India (1497–1499) established the direct sea route between Europe and Asia. Pedro Álvares Cabral claimed Brazil for Portugal (1500). And Ferdinand Magellan's expedition (1519–1522) completed the first circumnavigation of the globe, though Magellan himself was killed in the Philippines.

By the mid-16th century, the era of initial exploration was transitioning into one of colonization and exploitation. The Spanish had conquered the Aztec (1521) and Inca (1533) empires. The Portuguese had established trading posts across Africa, India, and Southeast Asia. The Treaty of Tordesillas (1494) had divided the non-European world between Spain and Portugal. English, French, and Dutch exploration accelerated in the late 16th and early 17th centuries, eventually challenging Iberian dominance.

The Age of Exploration permanently transformed human geography, connecting hemispheres that had been separated for millennia and initiating the process of globalization that continues to accelerate today.