Vinland was the name given to an area of North America by the Norsemen, about the year 1000 CE. Archaeology has given support to the long-held theory that old Norse sagas show Vikings reached North America approximately five centuries prior to the voyages of Christopher Columbus. In 1960 archaeological evidence of the only known Norse settlement in North America (outside of Greenland) was found at L'Anse aux Meadows on the northern tip of the island of Newfoundland, in what is now the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. This proved conclusively the Vikings' pre-Columbian discovery of North America. Recent archaeological studies suggest that this site is not the Vinland of the Norse accounts in its entirety but was the entrance to a larger region called Vinland by the Norse.
Read more about Vinland: Etymology, The Sagas, Medieval Geographers, Later Norse Voyages, Modern Geographers and The Location of Vinland, Other Norse Finds in America