Wang Dayuan (, fl. 1311–1350), courtesy name Huanzhang (), was a Chinese traveller of the

Yuan dynasty The Yuan dynasty (), officially the Great Yuan (; xng, , , literally "Great Yuan State"), was a Mongol-led imperial dynasty of China and a successor state to the Mongol Empire after its division. It was established by Kublai, the fift ...

from Quanzhou in the 14th century. He is known for his two major ship voyages. Wang Dayuan was born around 1311 at Hongzhou (present-day

Nanchang Nanchang (, ; ) is the capital of Jiangxi Province, People's Republic of China. Located in the north-central part of the province and in the hinterland of Poyang Lake Plain, it is bounded on the west by the Jiuling Mountains, and on the east ...

). During 1328–1333, he sailed along the South China Sea and visited many places in

Southeast Asia Southeast Asia, also spelled South East Asia and South-East Asia, and also known as Southeastern Asia, South-eastern Asia or SEA, is the geographical south-eastern region of Asia, consisting of the regions that are situated south of mainlan ...

. He reached as far as

South Asia South Asia is the southern subregion of Asia, which is defined in both geographical Geography (from Greek: , ''geographia''. Combination of Greek words ‘Geo’ (The Earth) and ‘Graphien’ (to describe), literally "earth descr ...

and Australia, and landed in modern-day Bengal, Sri Lanka, and

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

, as well as areas close to modern-day Darwin, Australia. In 1334–1339 he visited

North Africa North Africa, or Northern Africa is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region, and it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of Mauritania in ...

and East Africa. Around 1330, Wang visited the island of

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, bor ...

, where he wrote about a small settlement called ''Danmaxi'' (, ms, Temasek) that had both Malay and Chinese residents, and already had an established Chinatown. His 1349 account of his travel, '' Dao Yi Zhi Lue'' (; ''A Brief Account of Island Barbarians''), is one of the few records documenting the early history of Singapore.was a monkey Ap7WX&sig=KSjp300mmvnSJALjDagWLXJ6xWA The Ethnic Chinese in the Asian States
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References

Chinese explorers Yuan dynasty people Explorers of Africa Explorers of Asia History of Kerala Chinese travel writers {{explorer-stub Hokkien people