Mapping the Viking Voyages Across the North Atlantic

Around the year 1000, Norse crews sailed open boats from Scandinavia to the edge of North America, five centuries before Columbus. Their island-hopping crossings make one of the most dramatic map animations you can build.

Chart the island-hopping legs

1. Add the stepping stones as stops: Bergen, the Faroe Islands, Reykjavik, the Eastern Settlement in Greenland, and L'Anse aux Meadows, the Vinland site on Newfoundland's northern tip.
2. Set every leg to Sail mode; our guide on how to animate ocean and sailing routes on a map covers the wake styling and per-leg timing.
3. Swap the default marker for a longship icon so each crossing reads as a voyage, not a commute.

Design a cold Norse theme

The North Atlantic should feel like the North Atlantic. Open the Theme panel and use Theme Studio to pull the palette toward steel-grey water, pale glacial land, and thin muted borders. Turn the modern road network off completely; there was nothing out there but ocean. Done right, the map itself becomes the weather.

One ocean apart

The same Sail-mode template rebuilds any sea epic. For a striking counterpart, pair these short, brutal hops with Magellan's voyage as a map animation. One route hugs the ice, the other circles the planet.

Chart your own crossing in Route Builder and put a longship on the horizon.