Cape of Good Hope in the context of "Cape Peninsula"

The geography of North Africa has been reasonably well known among Europeans since classical antiquity in Greco-Roman geography. Northwest Africa (the Maghreb) was known as either Libya or Africa, while Egypt was considered part of Asia.

European exploration of sub-Saharan Africa begins with the Age of Discovery in the 15th century, pioneered by the Kingdom of Portugal under Henry the Navigator. The Cape of Good Hope was first reached by Bartolomeu Dias on 12 March 1488, opening the important sea route to India and the Far East, but European exploration of Africa itself remained very limited during the 16th and 17th centuries. The European powers were content to establish trading posts along the coast while they were actively exploring and colonizing the New World. Exploration of the interior of Africa was thus mostly left to the Muslim slave traders, who in tandem with the Muslim conquest of Sudan established far-reaching networks and supported the economy of a number of Sahelian kingdoms during the 15th to 18th centuries.

The Portuguese Empire was a colonial empire that existed between 1415 and 1999. In conjunction with the Spanish Empire, it ushered in the European Age of Discovery. It achieved a global scale, controlling vast portions of the Americas, Africa and various islands in Asia and Oceania. It was one of the most powerful empires of the early modern period, while at its greatest extent in 1820, covering 5.5 million square km (2.1 million square miles), making it among the largest empires in history. Composed of colonies, factories, and later overseas territories, it was the longest-lived colonial empire in history, from the conquest of Ceuta in North Africa in 1415 to the handover of Macau to China in 1999.

The power and influence of the Kingdom of Portugal would eventually expand across the globe. In the wake of the Reconquista, Portuguese sailors began exploring the coast of Africa and the Atlantic archipelagos in 1418–1419, using recent developments in navigation, cartography, and maritime technology such as the caravel, with the aim of finding a sea route to the source of the lucrative spice trade. In 1488, Bartolomeu Dias rounded the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Agulhas, and in 1498 Vasco da Gama reached India. In 1500, Pedro Álvares Cabral, while on a voyage to India, reached what would later be Brazil.

A landmark is a recognizable natural or artificial feature used for navigation, a feature that stands out from its near environment and is often visible from long distances.

In modern-day use, the term can also be applied to smaller structures or features that have become local or national symbols.

The Portuguese discovery of the sea route to India was the first recorded trip directly from Europe to the Indian subcontinent, via the Cape of Good Hope. Under the command of the Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama, it was undertaken during the reign of King Manuel in 1497–1499. It is one of the most important events of the Age of Discovery and the Portuguese Empire, and it initiated the Portuguese maritime trade on the Malabar Coast and other parts of the Indian Ocean, the military presence and settlements of the Portuguese in Goa and Bombay.

East Indiamen were merchant ships that operated under charter or licence for European trading companies which traded with the East Indies between the 17th and 19th centuries. The term was commonly used to refer to vessels belonging to the British, Dutch, French, Danish, Swedish, Austrian or Portuguese East India companies.

Several East Indiamen chartered by the British East India Company (EIC) were known as clippers. The EIC held a monopoly granted to it by Elizabeth I in 1600 for all English trade between the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Horn. This grant was progressively restricted during the late 18th and early 19th centuries, until the monopoly was lost in 1834. EIC East Indiamen usually ran between Britain, the Cape of Good Hope and India, where their primary destinations were the ports of Bombay, Madras and Calcutta.

Portuguese maritime explorations resulted in numerous territories and maritime routes recorded by the Portuguese on journeys during the 15th and 16th centuries. Portuguese sailors were at the vanguard of European exploration, chronicling and mapping the coasts of Africa and Asia, then known as the East Indies, Canada and Brazil (the West Indies), in what became known as the Age of Discovery.

Methodical expeditions started in 1419 along the coast of West Africa under the sponsorship of prince Henry the Navigator, whence Bartolomeu Dias reached the Cape of Good Hope and entered the Indian Ocean in 1488. Ten years later, in 1498, Vasco da Gama led the first fleet around Africa to the Indian subcontinent, arriving in Calicut and starting a maritime route from Portugal to India. Portuguese explorations then proceeded to southeast Asia, where they reached Japan in 1542, forty-four years after their first arrival in India. In 1500, the Portuguese nobleman Pedro Álvares Cabral became the first European to discover Brazil.

Cape Agulhas (/əˈɡʊljəs/; Portuguese: Cabo das Agulhas [ˈkaβu ðɐz ɐˈɣuʎɐʃ], "Cape of Needles") is a rocky headland in Western Cape, South Africa. It is the geographic southern tip of Africa and the beginning of the traditional dividing line between the Atlantic and Indian oceans according to the International Hydrographic Organization. It is approximately half a degree of latitude, or 55 kilometres (34 mi), farther south than the Cape of Good Hope.

Historically, the cape has been known to sailors as a major hazard on the traditional clipper route. It is sometimes regarded as one of the great capes. It was most commonly known in English as Cape L'Agulhas until the 20th century. The town of L'Agulhas is near the cape.

Vasco da Gama (/ˌvæsku də ˈɡɑːmə, -ɡæmə/ VAS-koo də GA(H)M-ə, European Portuguese: [ˈvaʃku ðɐ ˈɣɐmɐ]; c. 1460s – 24 December 1524) was a Portuguese mariner, explorer and nobleman. His discovery of the first direct maritime route between Europe and India via the Cape of Good Hope and across the Indian Ocean from Malindi in Kenya to Kozhikode was to open up European exploration of, and commerce with, India, and is considered a landmark event and a turning point in World history.

Da Gama's first voyage (1497–1499) was the first to link Europe and Asia using an ocean route that rounded the southern tip of Africa, although he was not the first Portuguese mariner to round the Cape. This route allowed the Portuguese to avoid sailing across the highly disputed Mediterranean Sea and traversing the dangerous Arabian Peninsula. A milestone in Portuguese maritime exploration, this voyage marked the beginning of a sea-based phase of international trade and an age of global imperialism. The Portuguese later established a long-lasting colonial empire along the route from Africa to Asia. The outward and return voyages constituted the longest known ocean voyages ever completed.