Sir Thomas More wrote his philosophical romance Utopia from 1514 to 1516, taking inspiration both from the Socratic dialogs in Plato's Republic and accounts of travellers like Amerigo Vespucci.

"And after many days' journey, they came to towns and cities, and to commonwealths, that were both happily governed and well-peopled. Under the equator, and as far on both sides of it as the sun moves, there lay vast deserts that were parched with the perpetual heat of the sun; the soil was withered, all things looked dismally, and all places were either quite uninhabited, or abounded with wild beasts and serpents, and some few men that were neither less wild nor less cruel than the beasts themselves.
But as they went farther, a new scene opened, all things grew milder, the air less burning, the soil more verdant, and even the beasts were less wild: and at last there were nations, towns, and cities, that had not only mutual commerce among themselves, and with their neighbors, but traded both by sea and land, to very remote countries."
            --- Utopia, Book 1, Sir Thomas More

All you want to know about Tomas More *   http://www.nypl.org/utopia/detectgt.html

Feminist Science Fiction. Fantasy and Utopia   *   Utopic interactive web-game

http://www.perso.wanadoo.fr/multiverse/utopia   *   http://www.utoronto.ca/utopia/

https://www.angelfire.com/co/harmony/utopiapa.html     *     http://www.utoronto.ca/utopia/