<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> <P> In 1139 the Kingdom of Portugal achieved independence from León, having doubled its area with the Reconquista under Afonso Henriques . </P>

Who sponsored portuguese fleets that sailed along the western coast of africa