Circumnavigation is the complete navigation around an entire island, continent, or astronomical body. This article focuses on the circumnavigation of Earth.
Jason Lewis of Expedition 360 pedalling his boat Moksha on the River Thames in London, shortly before completing the first human-powered circumnavigation of the Earth (2007)
A replica of Magellan and Elcano's Nao Victoria, the first vessel to circumnavigate the planet
In 2012, the Swiss boat PlanetSolar became the first solar electric vehicle to circumnavigate the globe.
The Magellan expedition, also known as the Magellan-Elcano expedition, was a 16th-century Spanish expedition planned and led by Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan. One of the most important voyages in the Age of Discovery—and in the history of exploration—its purpose was to cross the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans to open a trade route with the Moluccas, or Spice Islands, in present-day Indonesia. The expedition departed Spain in 1519 and returned there in 1522 led by Spanish navigator Juan Sebastián Elcano, who crossed the Indian Ocean after Magellan's death in the Philippines. Totaling 60,440 km, or 37,560 mi, the nearly three-year voyage achieved the first circumnavigation of Earth in history. It also revealed the vast scale of the Pacific Ocean and proved that ships could sail around the world on a western sea route.
King Charles of Spain was 18 years old when he agreed to finance Magellan's expedition to the Spice Islands in 1518. He is pictured here in a painting by Bernard van Orley c. 1517
A modern replica of the Victoria in the Nao Victoria Museum, Punta Arenas, Chile
Pedro Álvares Cabral had claimed Brazil for Portugal in 1500, 20 years before Magellan's voyage. This 1922 painting depicts his arrival in Porto Seguro and first encounter with the natives.
Artist's depiction of the fatal stabbing of captain Luis Mendoza, one of the architects of the attempted mutiny at Saint Julian.