New Albion

New Albion, also known as Nova Albion, was the name of all North America north of Mexico, from "sea to sea," claimed by Sir Francis Drake for England in 1579. The extent of New Albion and the location of Drake's port have long been debated by historians, with most believing that he came ashore in the Bay Area on the coast of northern California.

Albion, "the white", is an archaic name for the island of Great Britain. The name refers to the White Cliffs of Dover.

During his circumnavigation of the globe (1577–1580), in which he was ordered to destroy the Spanish flotillas in the New World and plunder settlements, Sir Francis Drake landed on the western coast of North America in his galleon, Golden Hind, and claimed the area for Queen Elizabeth I as New Albion. Along with Martin Frobisher's claims in Greenland and Baffin Island and Drake's claims at the tip of South America, New Albion was one of the earliest English territorial claims in the New World. Like Humphrey Gilbert's 1583 claim of Newfoundland, it was followed up by settlement of the Roanoke Colony in 1584, then by Jamestown, Virginia in 1607. Assertions that Drake left some of his men behind as an embryo "colony" in California are based merely on the reduced number who were with him in the Moluccas.

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