# Who is the greatest explorer of the 20th century?

> By 1900 the map had few blanks left, so the century's explorers went for the poles, the peaks, the trenches and orbit. Rank them.

*By YPB Team · Published August 31, 2026 · https://youpick.best/ranking/who-is-the-greatest-explorer-of-the-20th-century*

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## Current results (no votes yet)

1. **Neil Armstrong** — score 1000/1000
   Stepped onto the Moon on 20 July 1969.
2. **Yuri Gagarin** — score 673/1000
   Orbited the Earth once on 12 April 1961, the first human to leave it.
3. **Tenzing Norgay** — score 604/1000
   Summited Everest alongside Hillary after six previous expeditions on the mountain.
4. **Roald Amundsen** — score 524/1000
   Reached the South Pole first in December 1911 and sailed the Northwest Passage before that.
5. **Amelia Earhart** — score 443/1000
   Flew routes nobody had flown alone, and died attempting the longest of them.
6. **Jacques Cousteau** — score 443/1000
   Co-invented the aqua-lung and spent forty years filming what was under the surface.
7. **Gertrude Bell** — score 443/1000
   Mapped and travelled the Arabian deserts and helped draw the borders of modern Iraq.
8. **Ernest Shackleton** — score 349/1000
   Failed to cross Antarctica and brought all twenty-seven men home anyway.
9. **Edmund Hillary** — score 349/1000
   Reached the summit of Everest with Tenzing Norgay on 29 May 1953.
10. **Jacques Piccard** — score 238/1000
   Descended to the bottom of the Mariana Trench in the Trieste in 1960.
11. **Robert Falcon Scott** — score 238/1000
   Reached the South Pole a month after Amundsen and died on the way back.

Tags: adventure, legends, all-time, explorers