Vinland was the name given to an area of North America by the norseman Leif Eiríksson, about the year A.D. 1000 .

In 1960 archaeological evidence of Norse settlement in North America was found at L'Anse aux Meadows on the northern part of the island of Newfoundland, in what is now the Canadian Province of Newfoundland and Labrador. Although this proved conclusively the Vikings' pre-Columbian discovery of North America, whether this exact site is the Vinland of the Norse accounts is still a subject of debate.

There is a consensus among scholars that the Vikings did reach North America, approximately five centuries prior to the voyages of Christopher Columbus .