Abel Tasman's Voyage of Discovery, 1642–43
The route of Abel Tasman's 1642–43 VOC expedition, the first European voyage to reach Tasmania, New Zealand, and Fiji.
Dispatched by the Dutch East India Company's governor-general Anthony van Diemen in 1642, Abel Tasman sailed east from Mauritius in search of a southern trade route to Chile and new lands to exploit. He never sighted the Australian mainland he skirted, but he charted the coast of what he named Van Diemen's Land (present-day Tasmania) and became the first European to reach New Zealand and Fiji before returning via Tonga and New Guinea. The VOC judged the voyage commercially disappointing — no gold or spices — but it filled in one of the last blank corners of the world map. See how the company built its trading empire in how the Dutch East India Company transformed global trade networks.
Public domain — source (Wikimedia Commons). Free to reuse under the stated licence.
