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The Most Famous

EXPLORERS from China

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This page contains a list of the greatest Chinese Explorers. The pantheon dataset contains 405 Explorers, 5 of which were born in China. This makes China the birth place of the 14th most number of Explorers behind Canada and Poland.

Top 5

The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the most legendary Chinese Explorers of all time. This list of famous Chinese Explorers is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity.

Photo of Zheng He

1. Zheng He (1387 - 1433)

With an HPI of 80.31, Zheng He is the most famous Chinese Explorer.  His biography has been translated into 129 different languages on wikipedia.

Zheng He (simplified Chinese: 郑和; traditional Chinese: 鄭和; pinyin: Zhènghé; Wade–Giles: Chêng-ho; 1371–1433 or 1435) was a Chinese mariner, explorer, diplomat, fleet admiral, and court eunuch during the early Ming dynasty often regarded as the greatest admiral in Chinese history. He was originally born as Ma He in a Muslim family and later adopted the surname Zheng conferred by the Yongle Emperor. Commissioned by the Yongle Emperor and later the Xuande Emperor, Zheng commanded seven expeditionary treasure voyages to Southeast Asia, South Asia, West Asia, and East Africa from 1405 to 1433. According to legend, his larger ships carried hundreds of sailors on four decks and were almost twice as long as any wooden ship ever recorded. As a favorite of the Yongle Emperor, whom Zheng assisted in the overthrow of the Jianwen Emperor, Zheng He rose to the top of the imperial hierarchy and served as commander of the southern capital Nanjing.

Photo of Xuanzang

2. Xuanzang (602 - 664)

With an HPI of 75.05, Xuanzang is the 2nd most famous Chinese Explorer.  His biography has been translated into 64 different languages.

Xuanzang ([ɕɥɛ̌n.tsâŋ], (Hsüen Tsang) Chinese: 玄奘; 6 April 602 – 5 February 664), born Chen Hui / Chen Yi (陳褘 / 陳禕), also known by his Sanskrit Dharma name Mokṣadeva, was a 7th-century Chinese Buddhist monk, scholar, traveler, and translator. He is known for the epoch-making contributions to Chinese Buddhism, the travelogue of his journey to India in 629–645 CE, his efforts to bring over 657 Indian texts to China, and his translations of some of these texts. He was only able to translate 75 distinct sections of a total of 1335 chapters, but his translations included some of the most important Mahayana scriptures.Xuanzang was born on 6 April 602 in Chenliu, what is now Kaifeng municipality in Henan province of China. As a boy, he took to reading religious books, and studying the ideas therein with his father. Like his elder brother, he became a student of Buddhist studies at Jingtu monastery. Xuanzang was ordained as a śrāmaṇera (novice monk) at the age of thirteen. Due to the political and social unrest caused by the fall of the Sui dynasty, he went to Chengdu in Sichuan, where he was ordained as a bhikṣu (full monk) at the age of twenty. He later travelled throughout China in search of sacred books of Buddhism. At length, he came to Chang'an, then under the peaceful rule of Emperor Taizong of Tang, where Xuanzang developed the desire to visit India. He knew about Faxian's visit to India and, like him, was concerned about the incomplete and misinterpreted nature of the Buddhist texts that had reached China. He was also concerned about the competing Buddhist theories in variant Chinese translations. He sought original untranslated Sanskrit texts from India to help resolve some of these issues.At age 27, he began his seventeen-year overland journey to India. He defied his nation's ban on travel abroad, making his way through central Asian cities such as Khotan to India. He visited, among other places, the famed Nalanda University in modern day Bihar, India where he studied with the monk, Śīlabhadra. He departed from India with numerous Sanskrit texts on a caravan of twenty packhorses. His return was welcomed by Emperor Taizong in China, who encouraged him to write a travelogue.This Chinese travelogue, titled the Great Tang Records on the Western Regions, is a notable source about Xuanzang, and also for scholarship on 7th-century India and Central Asia. His travelogue is a mix of the implausible, the hearsay and a firsthand account. Selections from it are used, and disputed, as a terminus ante quem of 645 CE for events, names and texts he mentions. His text in turn provided the inspiration for the novel Journey to the West written by Wu Cheng'en during the Ming dynasty, around nine centuries after Xuanzang's death.

Photo of Zhang Qian

3. Zhang Qian (-200 - -114)

With an HPI of 66.36, Zhang Qian is the 3rd most famous Chinese Explorer.  His biography has been translated into 39 different languages.

Zhang Qian (Chinese: 張騫; died c. 114 BC) was a Chinese diplomat, explorer, and politician who served as an imperial envoy to the world outside of China in the late 2nd century BC during the Western Han dynasty. He was one of the first official diplomats to bring back valuable information about Central Asia, including the Greco-Bactrian remains of the Macedonian Empire as well as the Parthian Empire, to the Han dynasty imperial court, then ruled by Emperor Wu of Han. He played an important pioneering role for the future Chinese conquest of lands west of Xinjiang, including swaths of Central Asia and even lands south of the Hindu Kush (see Protectorate of the Western Regions). This trip created the Silk Road that marked the beginning of globalization between the countries in the east and west.Zhang Qian's travel was commissioned by Emperor Wu with the major goal of initiating transcontinental trade in the Silk Road, as well as create political protectorates by securing allies. His missions opened trade routes between East and West and exposed different products and kingdoms to each other through trade. Zhang's accounts were compiled by Sima Qian in the 1st century BC. The Central Asian parts of the Silk Road routes were expanded around 114 BC largely through the missions of and exploration by Zhang Qian. Today, Zhang is considered a Chinese national hero and revered for the key role he played in opening China and the countries of the known world to the wider opportunity of commercial trade and global alliances. Zhang Qian is depicted in the Wu Shuang Pu (無雙譜, Table of Peerless Heroes) by Jin Guliang.

Photo of Gan Ying

4. Gan Ying (100 - )

With an HPI of 57.53, Gan Ying is the 4th most famous Chinese Explorer.  His biography has been translated into 26 different languages.

Gan Ying (Chinese: 甘英; pinyin: Gān Yīng; fl. 90s CE) was a Chinese diplomat, explorer, and military official who was sent on a mission to the Roman Empire to find out more about it in 97 CE by the Chinese military general Ban Chao.Gan Ying did not reach Rome, only traveling to as far as the "western sea" which could refer to either the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea, the Black Sea, or the Parthian coast of the Persian Gulf. From there they could have followed the Euphrates north to the Roman border in Syria in a few weeks, but they did not know this and instead they planned to sail around Arabia to Roman Egypt, which would have taken 3 months. Becoming discouraged by local sailors' stories of bad weather, they gave up and went home.

Photo of Ma Huan

5. Ma Huan (1380 - 1460)

With an HPI of 52.83, Ma Huan is the 5th most famous Chinese Explorer.  His biography has been translated into 18 different languages.

Ma Huan (simplified Chinese: 马欢; traditional Chinese: 馬歡; pinyin: Mǎ Huān, Xiao'erjing: ﻣَﺎ ﺧُﻮًا) (c. 1380–1460), courtesy name Zongdao (Chinese: 宗道; pinyin: Zōngdào), pen name Mountain-woodcutter (會稽山樵), was a Chinese explorer, translator, and travel writer who accompanied Admiral Zheng He on three of his seven expeditions to the Western Oceans. Ma was a Muslim and was born in Zhejiang's Kuaiji Commandery, an area within the modern borders of Shaoxing. He knew several Classical Chinese and Buddhist texts. He learned Arabic to be able to translate.

Pantheon has 5 people classified as explorers born between 200 BC and 1387. Of these 5, none of them are still alive today. The most famous deceased explorers include Zheng He, Xuanzang, and Zhang Qian.

Deceased Explorers

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