New World

The "New World" (Latin: Mundus novus) is an early modern term describing the majority of lands in the Western Hemisphere, particularly the Americas, and sometimes Oceania. It was introduced in the early 16th century, during Europe's Age of Discovery, by Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci, who published the pamphlet Mundus novus, presenting his conclusion that the lands discovered west of the Atlantic Ocean (soon called America after Amerigo's name) constituted new continents.

This realization expanded the geographical horizon of earlier European geographers, who had thought that the world included only Africa, Asia, and Europe, which became collectively known as the "Old World".

Origin of the term

The Florentine explorer Amerigo Vespucci is usually credited for coming up with the term "New World" (Mundus Novus) for the Americas in his 1503 letter, giving it its popular cachet, although similar terms had been used and applied before him.

Prior usage

The Venetian explorer Alvise Cadamosto used the term "un altro mondo" ("another world") to refer to sub-Saharan Africa, which he explored in 1455 and 1456 on behalf of the Portuguese. This was merely a literary flourish, not a suggestion of a new "fourth" part of the world. Cadamosto was aware that sub-Saharan Africa was part of the African continent.

Peter Martyr d'Anghiera, an Italian chronicler at the service of Spain, doubted Christopher Columbus's claims to have reached East Asia ("the Indies"), and consequently came up with alternative names to refer to them. Only a few weeks after Columbus's return from his first voyage, Martyr wrote letters referring to Columbus's discovered lands as the "western antipodes" ("antipodibus occiduis", letter of 14 May 1493), and the "new hemisphere of the earth" ("novo terrarum hemisphaerio", 13 September 1493).

In a letter dated 1 November 1493, he refers to Columbus as the "discoverer of the new globe" ("Colonus ille novi orbis repertor").