Why didn't any of the East Asian cultures/empires discover America?
China, Korea, Japan, Mongolia, Russia... All these countries and they never once went North just a bit more and discovered it?
The bloody Mongols made it to Europe, but they never once thought about going North of Lake Baikal.
It wasn't until the 1700s that the Russians even charted those Northern areas near the Bering Strait.
Or am I just being an idiot and have I overlooked something?
They, um, populated America
Because there was fucking nothing over there and they had no fucking need to think there'd be anything in there worth getting. Already Hokkaido and Sakhalin are barren wastelands without real civilization.
6000 kilometers of tundra will deter anyone
That part of the americas is shit anyways. Would you continue if you found just some frozen islands after a long-ass travel in the frozen tundra?
I don't even fucking know how the ancestors of the native americans believed it was a good idea.
The habitable parts of North America (as opposed to the parts that were like Kamchatka or Sakhalin, both of which were barely populated at the time) were too far away. The Pacific Ocean is fucking huge.
Fine, I take the point that for reasons of "there's nothing fuckin' there" they wouldn't invest a lot into it. But don't you think there weren't a few enthusiastic young sods would want to do it "just because".
Europe produced so many explorers would discovered most of the damn world. Their reasons? Sometimes for profit, for resources, for trade, etc. but also sometimes to just see what was there?
Probably increasing food scarcity is what motivated them. Though latest theories on the early settlement of the Americas holds that coastal migration is more likely, and it's unlikely they could have made that journey without preexisting maritime traditions, in which case food scarcity likely was not the impetus.
>Or am I just being an idiot and have I overlooked something?
Just the thousands of kilometer of tundra containing basically nothing of value. Why would the Mongols, a people primarily reliant on conquest by horse, go into an empty wasteland bereft of grass and civilizations to plunder?
Europe didn't have much choice seeing as they live on a cluster of peninsulas with no wilderness to explore except the oceans and seas. Going anywhere for them meant going by boat, that or going east into the endless steppes and deserts of Asia, which were filled with marauding hordes of savages. The sea must have seemed a gentler alternative. For however much Europeans romance the terror of the sea, it provided safer, faster travel than trying to trek overland through Asia. Just imagine how the inhabitants of Asia felt about it. Land on every side, seemingly endless, with vast tracks so barren not even you who has lived in such country your whole life can eke a living from it. And you want to try crossing it? For what purpose?
More plunder to the west.
Okay, so the North-East of Asia is a barren wasteland that no one wanted nor could be bothered to explore. I can sort of accept that as a reason.
However, why wasn't there major expeditions to the South into Indonesia, the rest of the East Indies and even Australia?
There were plenty of settlements, tribes and cultures down that way and it's not quite a lot barren as the Siberian wastelands. So why didn't they go down there?
They could of gone down for resources and trade or even utilise the locals and start a slave trade.
Or again was it that they were too occupied with the West and lacked motivation to even explore down there?
But the Chinese were trading in that region
Because the biggest state player in that region China had troubles brewing on the home front constantly so they'd rather set up trade with the natives than launch colonization campaigns down there
Ya twat
They knew about it
Frozen wastelands and unusable bullshit for miles
No point in settling or claiming it
The only reason russia has it is because they have no natural borders and need to expand to find them
While in Siberia they were genetically isolated for millenia which probably means they were locked in by huge frozen wastes to the west and going east was the only way when things got even worse.
The Pacific is roughly twice as wide as the Atlantic, and the prevailing winds on Earth go east to west, making reaching America from Europe FAR easier than from Asia. It IS a bit of a puzzle why they never discovered or settled Australia, tho. Maybe they did discover it but considered it worthless?
Because the other races can't into Faustian Spirit.
>Their reasons? Sometimes for profit, for resources, for trade, etc. but also sometimes to just see what was there?
Their reasons were because they wanted a route to Asia that didn't go through the Muslims. Exploration for its own sake came after the economically motivated exploration had cemented it as a glorious thing.
IIRC there was intermittent and limited trade between people who lived in modern Indonesia and the most extremely northern Australian tribes. I can't remember the reason permanent contact was never established though.
fpbp
Indonesia was a powerful state at various times, and had extensive dealings with China. The Aboriginals never developed agriculture and were semi-nomadic, so I can see why they would have little worth trading for, and no long-term stability of trade. In fact I don't think they had much trade at all, even among themselves.
Native Americans are literally Asians who discovered America.
As for why the Japanese and Chinese never discovered them I guess they never had the need to venture that way.