Andrés de Urdaneta

Andrés de Urdaneta was a Spanish Augustinian friar and navigator whose 1565 voyage from the Philippines to New Spain established a practical eastward route across the Pacific.

Tornaviaje: The return voyage from the Philippines to New Spain across the Pacific, established by Andrés de Urdaneta in 1565. Urdaneta’s route became the practical eastbound passage linking Manila and Acapulco.
Miguel López de Legazpi: A Spanish conquistador who led the expedition that established Spanish rule in the Philippines. Legazpi commanded the 1564 expedition whose return voyage Urdaneta was tasked with finding.
Augustinian Order: A Catholic religious order whose members follow the Rule of Saint Augustine. Urdaneta joined the Augustinians after returning from his early voyages in Asia.
Manila galleon: A Spanish trading ship that carried Asian goods across the Pacific between Manila and Acapulco. The galleon trade depended on the eastbound route Urdaneta established.
San Pedro (1564 ship): The small vessel that carried Andrés de Urdaneta from the Philippines to New Spain in 1565. Its voyage demonstrated that Urdaneta’s proposed eastward route could be sailed.
North Pacific Gyre: A system of rotating ocean currents in the North Pacific driven by winds and Earth's rotation. The route crossed this current system after sailing north from the Philippines.
New Spain: The Spanish colonial territory in the Americas administered from Mexico City from the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries. The expedition departed from New Spain, the American base for Spain’s Pacific ambitions.
García Jofre de Loaísa: A Spanish nobleman who commanded an expedition to the Moluccas in 1525. Urdaneta sailed with Loaísa’s expedition and gained firsthand experience of the Pacific.
Manila-Acapulco trade: The transpacific exchange of Asian and American goods between Manila and Acapulco under Spanish rule. Urdaneta’s return route made regular trade between the ports feasible.
1564 Legazpi expedition: A Spanish expedition from New Spain that reached the Philippines in 1565 under Miguel López de Legazpi. Urdaneta joined this expedition and returned across the Pacific after its arrival.

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Magellan expeditionRelated: His route solved the return journey that the Magellan expedition had not established as a regular passage.