Which Spanish explorer first saw the Amazon River in 1500?

The Spanish explorer who first saw the Amazon River in 1500 was Vicente Yáñez Pinzón. During his 1499–1500 voyage along the northern coast of South America, Pinzón reached the enormous river’s mouth and sailed upstream for roughly 50 miles.

He called the river Río Santa María de la Mar Dulce, meaning “River of Saint Mary of the Freshwater Sea.” The name reflected the astonishing volume of fresh water pouring into the Atlantic, which could be detected far offshore. Pinzón’s voyage also took him to the coast of present-day Brazil, several months before Pedro Álvares Cabral’s better-known arrival in April 1500.

Pinzón had already been an experienced Atlantic navigator. He had commanded the Niña during Christopher Columbus’s first voyage in 1492, alongside his brothers Martín Alonso and Francisco Martín. His independent expedition was part of a wave of Spanish and Portuguese voyages that followed Columbus’s reports of lands across the Atlantic.

The wording “first saw” refers to the first recorded European sighting. Indigenous peoples had lived throughout the Amazon basin for thousands of years, and the river was known through their own geographic and cultural traditions long before European contact.