Wanderlust World Wanderlust World When Columbus arrived in 1492, the continents we now call the Americas had no collective name in Europe. The term "America" derives from Amerigo Vespucci, an Italian explorer who wrote widely read accounts of his voyages to the "New World" between 1497–1504.
German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller first applied the name "America" on his 1507 world map, honoring Vespucci’s realization that these lands were a separate continent—not Asia. The name stuck and eventually covered both North and South America.
In 1492, Indigenous peoples knew these lands by countless names in their own languages. Europeans referred to them vaguely as the "Indies" or "New World" long after Columbus’s first voyage.