THE WORLD ATLAS

Chapter · Late Middle Ages / Age of Discovery

Worlds About to Collide

The world in 1492

In 1492 the world's hemispheres still knew nothing of each other. In the Americas the Aztec Triple Alliance and the Inca Empire were at their height, ruling millions from Tenochtitlan and Cusco.

Across Eurasia the great powers were Ming China, the richest and most populous state on Earth, the Ottoman Empire, which had held Constantinople since 1453, and the Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt and Syria. In January, Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain conquered Granada, ending nearly eight centuries of Muslim rule in Iberia, and soon expelled Spain's Jews. In October, Christopher Columbus, sailing for Castile, reached the Bahamas, and within decades disease, conquest and trade would bind the continents together. Portugal was racing for a sea route to India around Africa. Most people everywhere were farmers living in villages, and most of the world's land was still held by peoples organised in clans, chiefdoms and small kingdoms rather than empires.

Open the map in 1492

The great powers

Region by region

Southern Africa

Most of Africa south of the equator was home to Bantu-speaking farming and cattle-herding kingdoms and chiefdoms, with Khoisan herders and foragers in the far south-west. The Kingdom of Kongo, under Nzinga a Nkuwu, had just welcomed Portuguese envoys and priests, and the king was baptised as Joao I in 1491. On the Zambezi plateau the Mutapa (Mwenemutapa) kingdom controlled the gold trade once run from Great Zimbabwe, while Swahili city-states such as Kilwa traded across the Indian Ocean. Madagascar was divided among several kingdoms, among them the early Merina in the highlands.

Northern Africa

Egypt and Syria were ruled by the Mamluk Sultanate under Sultan Qaitbay. The Maghreb was split between the Wattasid sultans of Morocco, the Zayyanids of Tlemcen and the Hafsids of Tunis. In West Africa the Songhai Empire had overtaken Mali; its great conqueror Sunni Ali died late in 1492, and Askia Muhammad seized power the next year. Kanem-Bornu ruled around Lake Chad, Benin and Oyo flourished in the forest belt, and Christian Ethiopia was ruled by Emperor Eskender.

Europe

Spain was being forged by the union of Castile and Aragon under Isabella and Ferdinand, while Portugal under Joao II led Atlantic exploration. France was ruled by Charles VIII, England by Henry VII after the Wars of the Roses, and the Holy Roman Empire by the ageing Frederick III with his son Maximilian. Ivan III had made Moscow the leading Russian state and thrown off Tatar overlordship in 1480; Poland-Lithuania passed to Casimir IV's sons after his death in 1492. Italy was a patchwork of rich city-states, and the Ottomans held the Balkans up to the Danube.

Middle East & South Asia

The Ottoman Empire under Bayezid II held Anatolia and the Balkans, while the Mamluks ruled the Levant and the holy cities of Arabia. Iran and Iraq belonged to the Aq Qoyunlu (White Sheep Turkmen), weakened by succession quarrels, and Herat in Afghanistan was the glittering capital of the last major Timurid ruler, Sultan Husayn Bayqara. In India, Sikandar Lodi ruled the Delhi Sultanate in the north, Bengal and Gujarat were independent sultanates, the Bahmani Sultanate of the Deccan was breaking apart, and the Hindu Vijayanagara Empire dominated the south.

Northern & Central Asia

The western steppe was held by the successor khanates of the Golden Horde: the Crimean, Kazan and Astrakhan khanates and the dwindling Great Horde. Further east the Kazakh Khanate under Burunduk Khan and Uzbek clans led by Muhammad Shaybani contested the steppe north of the Syr Darya, while Moghulistan (the eastern Chagatai lands) survived around Tashkent and the Tarim Basin. The Khanate of Sibir ruled along the Irtysh, and the forests of Siberia belonged to many small hunting and reindeer-herding peoples.

East Asia

Ming China under the Hongzhi Emperor, ruling from Beijing, was stable and prosperous and had turned away from the great ocean voyages of Zheng He. Korea was ruled by King Seongjong of the Joseon dynasty. Japan was sliding into the Sengoku (Warring States) period: the Ashikaga shoguns in Kyoto had lost real power to regional lords after the Onin War. On the steppe, Dayan Khan was reuniting the eastern Mongols, while Oirat tribes held the west, and Tibet was dominated by the Rinpungpa princes.

Southeast Asia

The Sultanate of Malacca under Mahmud Shah controlled the strait between the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea and was the region's richest port and a centre of Islam. Ayutthaya, under King Ramathibodi II from 1491, was the leading power in what is now Thailand, while Dai Viet under Le Thanh Tong had recently crushed Champa. Cambodia had moved its capital away from Angkor, Burma was divided among Ava, Toungoo and the Mon kingdom of Hanthawaddy, and on Java the Hindu-Buddhist Majapahit kingdom was fading as Muslim port states such as Demak rose.

Northern North America

Canada, Alaska and the Arctic were home only to Indigenous peoples: Inuit and Thule-descended hunters across the Arctic, Dene and Cree in the subarctic forests, and Innu, Haudenosaunee and other peoples in the east. The Norse settlements in Greenland had died out decades earlier. No European had yet returned to these shores since the Norse, though fishermen from Bristol may already have been working the Grand Banks.

Southern North America

The Aztec Triple Alliance of Tenochtitlan, Texcoco and Tlacopan, led by the emperor Ahuitzotl, ruled central Mexico and collected tribute from hundreds of towns; its rivals included the Purepecha (Tarascan) state and independent Tlaxcala. Maya city-states persisted in Yucatan and Guatemala. To the north, Mississippian chiefdoms, Pueblo towns and many other nations filled what is now the United States. In October 1492 Columbus landed in the Bahamas and then visited Cuba and Hispaniola, home to the Taino.

Northern South America

The Inca Empire (Tawantinsuyu) was the largest state in the Americas, stretching along the Andes from Ecuador to central Chile; Topa Inca Yupanqui, its great conqueror, was near the end of his reign and would soon be succeeded by Huayna Capac. Beyond the mountains, the Amazon basin and Brazil's coast were home to many Tupi, Arawak, Carib and other peoples living in villages and chiefdoms. The Muisca confederation ruled the highlands of what is now Colombia.

Southern Cone

The Inca frontier reached the Maule River in central Chile, beyond which the Mapuche remained independent. The pampas and Patagonia belonged to hunting peoples such as the Tehuelche and Charrua, and Guarani farmers lived in the forests of Paraguay and southern Brazil. No Europeans had yet reached these lands.

Australasia & Oceania

Australia was home to hundreds of Aboriginal nations who had lived there for tens of thousands of years. Papuan farmers cultivated the highlands of New Guinea, and Maori iwi (tribes) had settled New Zealand about two centuries earlier. In the Pacific, the Tu'i Tonga maritime chiefdom held sway over Tonga and neighbouring islands, and Hawaii was divided among rival chiefs.

Events

  1. The Ottomans capture Constantinople, ending the Byzantine Empire
  2. Ivan III of Moscow ends Tatar overlordship after the Great Stand on the Ugra River
  3. Bartolomeu Dias rounds the Cape of Good Hope for Portugal
  4. King Nzinga a Nkuwu of Kongo is baptised as Joao I
  5. Granada falls to Ferdinand and Isabella; Spain expels its Jews
  6. Christopher Columbus reaches the Bahamas, Cuba and Hispaniola

Moments of this period

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Sources