46 18th century explorers

Sir Joseph Banks, 1st Baronet, was an English naturalist, botanist, and patron of the natural sciences.

Florian Baucke, also Florian Paucke, Florian Pauke, Spanish: Florián Baucke was a Silesian and Bohemian Jesuit missionary, who recorded the native traditions of South America.

Juan Francisco de la Bodega y Quadra was a Spanish naval officer born in Lima, Peru. Assigned to the Pacific coast Spanish Naval Department base at San Blas, in the Viceroyalty of New Spain, this navigator explored the Northwest Coast of North America as far north as present day Alaska.

José Cardero was a Spanish draughtsman and artist. He is most remembered for his work on the expedition of Alessandro Malaspina and the related expedition of Dionisio Alcalá Galiano. During the Galiano voyage Cordero Channel was named in his honor. Other places in British Columbia were later named in his honor as well, including Dibuxante Point, "dibuxante" being Spanish for "draughtsman".

Captain James Cook was a British explorer, navigator, cartographer, and captain in the British Royal Navy. He made detailed maps of Newfoundland prior to making three voyages to the Pacific Ocean, during which he achieved the first recorded European contact with the eastern coastline of Australia and the Hawaiian Islands, and the first recorded circumnavigation of New Zealand.

Joan Crespí or Juan Crespí was a Franciscan missionary and explorer of Las Californias.

William Dampier was an English explorer, pirate, and navigator who became the first Englishman to explore parts of what is today Australia, and the first person to circumnavigate the world three times. He has also been described as Australia's first natural historian, as well as one of the most important British explorers of the period between Sir Walter Raleigh and James Cook.

Félix Delahaye was a French gardener who served on the Bruni d'Entrecasteaux voyage (1791–93) that was sent by the French National Assembly to search for the missing explorer Jean-François La Perouse. He was also one of the earliest European gardeners to work in Australia.

George Dixon was an English sea captain, explorer, and maritime fur trader. George Dixon was "born in Leath Ward, a native of Kirkoswald". The son of Thomas Dixon, he was baptised in Kirkoswald on 8 July 1748.

The Domínguez–Escalante expedition was a Spanish journey of exploration conducted in 1776 by two Franciscan priests, Atanasio Domínguez and Silvestre Vélez de Escalante, to find an overland route from Santa Fe, New Mexico, to their Roman Catholic mission in Monterey, on the coast of modern day central California. Domínguez, Vélez de Escalante, and Bernardo de Miera y Pacheco, acting as the expedition's cartographer, traveled with ten men from Santa Fe through many unexplored portions of the American West, including present-day western Colorado, Utah, and northern Arizona. Along part of the journey, they were aided by three indigenous guides of the Timpanogos tribe.

Marc-Joseph Marion du Fresne, with the surname sometimes spelt Dufresne, was a Breton-born French explorer who made important discoveries in the south Indian Ocean, in Tasmania and in New Zealand. Du Fresne was killed by Māori in 1772.

Antoine Raymond Joseph de Bruni, chevalier d'Entrecasteaux was a French naval officer, explorer and colonial governor. He is perhaps best known for his exploration of the Australian coast in 1792, while searching for the La Pérouse expedition. Antoine Bruni d'Entrecasteaux is commonly referred to simply as Bruni d'Entrecasteaux or Bruny d'Entrecasteaux, which is a compound surname.

Alexandre Rodrigues Ferreira was a naturalist born in Brazil. He undertook an extensive journey which crossed the interior of the Amazon Basin to Mato Grosso, between 1783 and 1792. During this journey, he described the agriculture, flora, fauna, and native inhabitants.

Paul Antoine Fleuriot de Langle was a French vicomte, académicien de marine, naval commander and explorer. He was second in command of the La Pérouse expedition, which departed France on 1 August 1785 and was eventually lost in the Pacific. Fleuriot de Langle died in an encounter with natives in what is now American Samoa before the expedition was lost; his remains were returned to France, and were buried in the choir of the church of Saint-Louis at Brest.

Peter Forsskål, sometimes spelled Pehr Forsskål, Peter Forskaol, Petrus Forskål or Pehr Forsskåhl was a Swedish-speaking Finnish explorer, orientalist, naturalist, and an apostle of Carl Linnaeus.

Johann George Adam Forster was a German naturalist, ethnologist, travel writer, journalist, and revolutionary. At an early age, he accompanied his father, Johann Reinhold Forster, on several scientific expeditions, including James Cook's second voyage to the Pacific. His report of that journey, A Voyage Round the World, contributed significantly to the ethnology of the people of Polynesia and remains a respected work. As a result of the report, Forster was admitted to the Royal Society at the early age of twenty-two and came to be considered one of the founders of modern scientific travel literature.

Jean Baptiste Christophore Fusée Aublet was a French pharmacist, botanist and one of the earliest botanical explorers in South America. He was one of the first botanists to study ethnobotany in the Neotropics.

Dionisio Alcalá Galiano was a Spanish naval officer, cartographer, and explorer. He mapped various coastlines in Europe and the Americas with unprecedented accuracy using new technology such as chronometers. He commanded an expedition that explored and mapped the Strait of Juan de Fuca and the Strait of Georgia, and made the first European circumnavigation of Vancouver Island. He reached the rank of brigadier and died during the Battle of Trafalgar.

Jean-Michel Huon de Kermadec was a French Navy officer. He took part in voyages of exploration in the Pacific Ocean under Bruni d'Entrecasteaux, looking for the lost expedition of Jean-François de La Pérouse.

Yves-Joseph de Kerguelen-Trémarec was a French Navy officer. He is notable for discovering the Kerguelen Islands, and for authoring books about expeditions and about French naval operations during the American War of Independence. Welcomed as a hero after his First voyage of exploration, Kerguelen fell out of favour after his Second voyage and was cashiered for violating Navy regulations. He was rehabilitated during the French Revolution.

Stepan Petrovich Krasheninnikov was a Russian explorer of Siberia, naturalist and geographer who gave the first full description of Kamchatka in the early 18th century. He was elected to the Russian Academy of Sciences in 1745. The Krasheninnikov Volcano on Kamchatka is named in his honour.

Jean François de Galaup, comte de Lapérouse was a French naval officer and explorer whose expedition vanished in Oceania.

Adam Kirillovich (Erikovich) Laxman was a Finnish–Swedish military officer and one of the first subjects of Imperial Russia to set foot in Japan. A lieutenant in the Imperial Russian military, he was commissioned to lead an expedition to Japan in 1791, returning two Japanese castaways to their home country in exchange for trade concessions from the Tokugawa shogunate. He was the son of Erik Laxmann.

Sir Alexander Mackenzie was a British explorer known for accomplishing the first east to west crossing of America north of Mexico in 1793, which preceded the more famous Lewis and Clark Expedition by 12 years. The Mackenzie River is named after him, the longest river system in Canada and the second longest in North America.

Alejandro Malaspina was a Tuscan explorer who spent most of his life as a Spanish naval officer. Under a Spanish royal commission, he undertook a voyage around the world from 1786 to 1788, then, from 1789 to 1794, a scientific expedition throughout the Pacific Ocean, exploring and mapping much of the west coast of the Americas from Cape Horn to the Gulf of Alaska, crossing to Guam and the Philippines, and stopping in New Zealand, Australia, and Tonga.

Esteban José Martínez Fernández y Martínez de la Sierra, or simply José Esteban Martínez (1742–1798) was a Spanish navigator and explorer, native of Seville. He was a key figure in the Spanish Exploration of the Pacific Northwest.

John Meares was a navigator, explorer, and maritime fur trader, best known for his role in the Nootka Crisis, which brought Britain and Spain to the brink of war.

Francisco Antonio Mourelle de la Rúa was a Spanish naval officer and explorer from Galicia serving the Spanish crown. He was born in 1750 at San Adrián de Corme, near A Coruña, Galicia.

Gerhard Friedrich Müller was a Russian-German historian and pioneer ethnologist.

Abraham Parsons was an English commercial consul and traveller. His account of his travels in the Middle East were published in 1808.

Nathaniel Portlock was a British ship’s captain, maritime fur trader, and author.

Gavriil Loginovich Pribylov was a Russian navigator who discovered the Bering Sea islands of St. George Island and St. Paul Island in 1786 and 1787. The islands, and surrounding small islets, now bear his name, being known as the Pribilof Islands.

Maria Pronchishcheva was a Russian explorer.

Manuel Quimper Benítez del Pino was a Spanish Peruvian explorer, cartographer, naval officer, and colonial official. He participated in charting the Strait of Juan de Fuca and the Sandwich Islands in the late 18th century. He was later appointed a colonial governor in his native Peru at the beginning of the fight for independence there. He retired to Spain, but was able to return to Peru where he served as a naval officer in the new republic and pursued a literary career, publishing over 20 books about his experiences before his death there in Lima.

Anselme Riedlé (1765–1801) was gardener at the Jardin des Plantes who was invited to join the Nicolas Baudin scientific expedition (1800–1804) in the corvettes Géographe and Naturaliste to chart the coast of New Holland (Australia), make scientific observations and collect natural history specimens. This was possibly the largest such voyage of its kind in the early nineteenth century, with a team of 22 savants. He was Head Gardener to a team of 5 gardeners that served on the voyage, the others being Antoine Sautier, Cagnet, Merlot, and Antoine Guichenot. Riedlé had accompanied Baudin on a previous expedition where Riedlé had collected plants in the West Indies.

Pierre-Paul Saunier (1751–1818) was a gardener who worked first at Montbard in the Bourgogne region in eastern France, and then at the Jardin du Roi in Paris where he was a protégé of head gardener André Thouin (1746–1824). In 1785, Thouin selected him to accompany the explorer-botanist André Michaux (1746–1802) to North America where he was to assist in the establishment of a royal garden for the French crown.

Grigory Ivanovich Shelekhov was a Russian seafarer, merchant and fur trader.

Pierre Sonnerat was a French naturalist, colonial administrator, writer and explorer. He described numerous species of plants and animals on his travels and is honoured in the genus Sonneratia and in other specific names such as that of the grey junglefowl Gallus sonneratii.

James Charles Stuart Strange was a British officer of the East India Company, one of the first maritime fur traders, a banker, and a member of parliament.

Jean-François-Marie de Surville was a merchant captain with the French East India Company. He commanded a voyage of exploration to the Pacific in 1769–70.

Vasily Nikitich Tatishchev was a prominent Russian Imperial statesman, historian, philosopher, and ethnographer, best remembered as the author of the first full-scale Russian history and founder of three Russian cities: Stavropol-on-Volga, Yekaterinburg, and Perm. Throughout this work, he advocates the idea that autocracy is the perfect form of government for Russia.

Cayetano Valdés y Flores Bazán (1767–1835) was a commander of the Spanish Navy, explorer, and captain general who served in the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, fighting for both sides at different times due to the changing fortunes of Spain in the conflict. He took part in a number of naval battles, including the Great Siege of Gibraltar, the Battle of Cape St Vincent, and the Battle of Trafalgar. He was an explorer, most notable in the Pacific Northwest, where he and Dionisio Alcalá Galiano conducted the first circumnavigation of Vancouver Island, in partial cooperation with George Vancouver. Over his long career he achieved the highest ranks in the Spanish Navy, eventually being named Captain General of Cadiz and Captain General of the Spanish Navy.

Captain George Vancouver was a British officer of the Royal Navy best known for his 1791–95 expedition, which explored and charted North America's northwestern Pacific Coast regions, including the coasts of what are now the American states of Alaska, Washington, and Oregon, as well as the Canadian province of British Columbia. He also explored the Hawaiian Islands and the southwest coast of Australia.

Franz de Paula Adam Norbert Wenzel Ludwig Valentin von Waldstein was an Austrian soldier, explorer and naturalist.

Samuel Wallis was a British naval officer and explorer of the Pacific Ocean. He made the first recorded visit by a European navigator to Tahiti.

Captain James Wilson (1760–1814), commanded the British ship Duff, which the London Missionary Society contracted in 1797 to convey a team of missionaries to their postings in Tahiti, Tonga, and the Marquesas Islands.