Maarten Gerritszoon Vries

Cape of Aniva, Cape of Patience, Staten Island (Isola di Stati), and Strait of de Vries all seen on this Italian map from 1682. As the map shows, de Vries did not have a chance to discover either La Pérouse Strait or the Strait of Tartary, the mapmakers thus making Hokkaido and Sakhalin part of the mainland.

Maarten Gerritszoon Vries or Fries, also referred to as de Vries, (18 February 1589 in Harlingen, Netherlands – late 1647 at sea near Manila) was a 17th-century Dutch cartographer and explorer, the first Western European to leave an account of his visit to Ezo, Sakhalin, Kuril Islands and the Sea of Okhotsk.

Not much is known about the life of de Vries. He was probably born in Harlingen, Netherlands, in 1589 and spent many years in Taiwan.[1] He is best remembered for his 1643 expedition to the north-western Pacific Ocean to discover the coast of Tartaria, on account of Anthony van Diemen, the governor in Batavia. This was the second expedition to look for legendary gold and silver islands in the Pacific, which nobody had discovered, after a failed expedition in 1639 under command of Matthijs Quast.

  1. ^ "Ontstaan van de Vereniging". www.oud-harlingen.nl. Archived from the original on 24 July 2011. Retrieved 6 June 2022.