<P> Portuguese discoveries ( Portuguese : Descobrimentos portugueses ) are the numerous territories and maritime routes discovered by the Portuguese as a result of their intensive maritime exploration during the 15th and 16th centuries . Portuguese sailors were at the vanguard of European overseas exploration , discovering and mapping the coasts of Africa , Canada , Asia and Brazil , in what became known as the Age of Discovery . Methodical expeditions started in 1419 along West Africa 's coast under the sponsorship of prince Henry the Navigator , with Bartolomeu Dias reaching the Cape of Good Hope and entering the Indian Ocean in 1488 . Ten years later , in 1498 , Vasco da Gama led the first fleet around Africa to India , arriving in Calicut and starting a maritime route from Portugal to India . Portuguese explorations then proceeded to southeast Asia , where they reached Japan in 1542 , forty - four years after their first arrival in India . In 1500 , the Portuguese nobleman Pedro Álvares Cabral became the first European to discover Brazil . </P>
who sponsored the first portuguese fleets to explore the west coast of africa
Henry the Navigator