Knowra New World New World New World is a historical European name for the Americas after transatlantic contact began in 1492. The label reflects European perspectives and does not describe the continents as newly inhabited or discovered by their Indigenous peoples.
Christopher Columbus : A Genoese navigator whose 1492 expedition, sponsored by Castile, crossed the Atlantic and reached the Caribbean. His voyage initiated sustained European contact that gave the name its historical setting.
Indigenous peoples of the Americas : The diverse peoples and societies native to the Americas before and after European arrival. Their long histories show why the continents were not new to their inhabitants.
Old World : A historical European term for Europe, Asia, and Africa, contrasted with the Americas. The paired label placed Europe’s familiar continents against the supposedly new lands.
World map : A map depicting all or most of Earth’s surface. Early modern maps helped make the Americas legible within European geographic knowledge.
Age of Discovery : A period of European maritime exploration and overseas expansion beginning in the fifteenth century. The name emerged amid voyages that connected Europe with the Americas.
Columbian exchange : The movement of organisms, diseases, people, and goods between the Americas and the rest of the world after 1492. The name’s historical period brought exchanges that reshaped societies on both sides of the Atlantic.
Americas : The combined name for North America and South America, sometimes including Central America and the Caribbean. This geographical name is more common today and avoids the age judgment implicit in “New World.”
Cartography : The practice and study of making and interpreting maps. Mapmaking disseminated European names and claims for the lands called the New World.
Treaty of Tordesillas : A 1494 agreement dividing prospective overseas claims between Castile and Portugal along a meridian. It shows how European powers treated newly encountered Atlantic lands as objects of imperial division.
Atlantic slave trade : The forced transportation of millions of Africans across the Atlantic, chiefly to labor in the Americas. European expansion into the New World was closely tied to enslavement and plantation economies.
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