Researched
New World crops cross the ocean
After 1492 potatoes, maize, tomatoes and cassava spread across the world, while wheat, cattle and sugar crossed to America.
Open in the interactive tree →Columbus's voyages began a worldwide exchange of crops and animals. Potatoes and maize fed growing populations in Europe, Africa and Asia; one study estimates that the potato alone explains about a quarter of Old World population and urban growth between 1700 and 1900. Wheat, rice, sugar, horses and cattle went west, and Old World diseases devastated native peoples at the same time.