The Explorers Club

The Explorers Club is an international multidisciplinary professional society dedicated to the advancement of field research and the ideal that it is vital to preserve the instinct to explore. Since its inception in 1904, the Club has served as a meeting point and unifying force for explorers and scientists worldwide. Our headquarters is located at 46 East 70th Street in New York City. 

Founded in New York City in 1904, The Explorers Club promotes the scientific exploration of land, sea, air, and space by supporting research and education in the physical, natural and biological sciences. The Club’s members have been responsible for an illustrious series of famous firsts: First to the North Pole, first to the South Pole, first to the summit of Mount Everest, first to the deepest point in the ocean, first to the surface of the moon—all accomplished by our members.

The Explorers Club, which has some thirty chapters in the United States and around the world, is characterized by the great diversity of its members’ backgrounds and interests. The seven founding members included two polar explorers, the curator of birds and mammals at The American Museum of Natural History, an archaeologist, a war correspondent and author, a professor of physics and an ethnologist. Today the membership includes field scientists and explorers from over sixty countries whose disciplines include: aeronautics, anthropology, archaeology, astronomy, biology, ecology, entomology, mountaineering, marine biology, oceanography, paleontology, physics, planetology, polar exploration, and zoology.