Which Dutch explorer discovered Easter Island in 1722?

The Dutch explorer who discovered Easter Island in 1722 was Jacob Roggeveen. His expedition reached the island on Easter Sunday, 5 April 1722, giving the island its European name, Paasch-Eyland, or “Easter Island.”

Roggeveen sailed for the Dutch West India Company with three ships—the Arend, Thienhoven, and Afrikaansche Galey. His mission was to search for the fabled southern continent, Terra Australis, and to investigate possible routes toward the Pacific and East Indies. Instead, the voyage brought him to one of the world’s most isolated inhabited islands.

Roggeveen was not the island’s first human discoverer. Rapa Nui had been settled by Polynesians centuries earlier, and its communities had developed the monumental moai tradition long before European contact. His visit was the first recorded European encounter, and it was brief and violent: a confrontation with islanders led the Dutch crew to open fire. Later visitors included the Spanish in 1770 and James Cook in 1774.