Printable ScholarColumbian Exchange Map
A free printable map of the Columbian Exchange, showing the two-way movement of crops, animals and diseases across the Atlantic Ocean after 1492, with a small ink picture of each crop and animal along the arrow it traveled. It comes in color, black and white, and blank with a line under each picture to write its name.
Choose your version
Black and white, color or blank.
All three are free PDFs sized for US Letter paper.
Black and white
Everything named on a plain map. No color ink needed.
downloadBlack and white PDF
Color
Both arrows, with a named ink picture of each crop and animal.
downloadColor PDF
Blank
The arrows and pictures with a line under each picture to write its name.
downloadBlank PDFThe Columbian Exchange
Before 1492, the Americas and the rest of the world, the Old World of Europe, Africa and Asia, had been cut off from each other for thousands of years, so each had plants, animals and germs the other had never seen. After Christopher Columbus crossed the Atlantic, ships began carrying them back and forth, and the historian Alfred Crosby later named this the Columbian Exchange. From the Americas came corn, potatoes, tomatoes, cacao, peanuts, beans, squash, peppers and tobacco. Potatoes and corn became everyday foods in Europe, Africa and Asia and helped their populations grow, and Spanish ships sailing from Mexico to the Philippines carried crops such as corn, sweet potatoes and chili peppers on to Asia. From the Old World came wheat, rice, sugar cane, coffee, bananas and oranges, and horses, cattle, pigs, sheep and chickens; horses changed life on the Great Plains, where many Native nations became horseback hunters. Settlers also brought diseases such as smallpox and measles, which Native Americans had no resistance to, and epidemics killed a large share of the Native population, in many places most of it. Sugar and other plantation crops led European colonists to bring millions of enslaved Africans across the Atlantic.
What crossed the Atlantic
- Green arrow, from the Americas: corn, potatoes, tomatoes, cacao, peanuts, beans, squash, peppers, vanilla, tobacco, rubber and turkeys
- Red arrow, to the Americas: wheat, rice, sugar cane, coffee, bananas, oranges, horses, cattle, pigs, sheep and chickens
- Also to the Americas: smallpox, measles and influenza, and European settlers
- Dotted arrow: millions of enslaved Africans forced across the Atlantic
- Seville and Lisbon: home ports of the Spanish and Portuguese fleets
- Havana, Veracruz, Santo Domingo and Salvador: ports in the Americas
Find it on the map
- The pictures along the green arrow: what went from the Americas to Europe
- The pictures along the red arrow: what came to the Americas, and the diseases written beside it
- The dotted arrow from West Africa to Brazil: the forced crossing of enslaved Africans
The arrows show the general direction of the exchange across the Atlantic, not exact sailing routes; ships followed the trade winds and currents. The pictures stand for each crop or animal and are not placed where it was grown. Goods also crossed the Pacific between Mexico and the Philippines, which is off this map. Coastlines and rivers are shown as they are today.
Frequently asked questions
What was the Columbian Exchange?
The movement of plants, animals, diseases and people between the Americas and Europe, Africa and Asia that began after Columbus reached the Americas in 1492. The historian Alfred Crosby gave it that name in 1972.
What came from the Americas?
Corn (maize), potatoes, tomatoes, cacao for chocolate, peanuts, beans, squash, peppers, vanilla, tobacco, rubber and turkeys.
What came to the Americas?
Wheat, rice, sugar cane, coffee, bananas and oranges; horses, cattle, pigs, sheep and chickens; diseases such as smallpox, measles and influenza; and people, both European settlers and enslaved Africans.