The Dutch navigator Willem Barents (died 1597) was his country's renowned Arctic explorer, having discovered Spitsbergen and the Barents Sea.

Willem Barents was born on the island of Terschelling off the Friesland coast of the Netherlands. He became the pupil of Petrus Plancius (Peter Platevoet), a theologian-cartographer whose sermons are often said to have been lessons in geography and astronomy.

Barents took part in two unsuccessful Arctic voyages before his memorable discovery. In 1592 Jan Huyghen van Linschoten of Enkhuizen returned from a voyage to Goa with a Portuguese fleet and wrote a widely read Itinerary. This stimulated Dutch interest in the Orient, though at the time it seemed dangerous to contest the Portuguese monopoly of the route around the Cape of Good Hope. In 1595 Amsterdam merchants, undiscouraged by the English failure to find a Northeast Passage 40 years earlier, decided to resume the search. They prepared two ships, placing one...