The Grande Médaille d'Or des Explorations et Voyages de Découverte (Great Gold Medal of Exploration and Journeys of Discovery) has been awarded since 1829 by the Société de Géographie of France for journeys whose outcomes have enhanced geographical knowledge.[1]
| Year | Recipient | Reason | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1829 | Captain John Franklin | for his voyage to the North Polar region | |
| 1830 | René Caillié and Major Alexander Gordon Laing | for their journey to Timbuktu | |
| 1832 | Jean Baptiste Douville | for his journey to the Congo and in equatorial Africa | |
| 1834 | Captain John Ross | for his voyages in the Polar seas | |
| 1835 | Alcide d'Orbigny | for his journeys in southern America | |
| 1836 | Captain Camille Callier | for his journeys in the Orient (Middle East) | |
| 1837 | Captain George Back | for his voyages in the Arctic region | |
| 1838 | for his journey in the Caucasus region | ||
| 1841 | Rear-admiral Dumont d'Urville | for his voyage to the South Pole and Oceania | |
| 1843 | James Clark Ross | for his discoveries in the Antarctic seas | |
| 1844 | Xavier Hommaire de Hell | for his voyage on the Caspian Sea | |
| for his journey towards the source of the White Nile | |||
| 1845 | Claude Gay | for his journey to Chile | |
| and | for their journey in Abyssinia | ||
| 1846 | Charles Tilstone Beke and | for their journey in Abyssinia (medal returned by Beke) | |
| 1847 | Ludwig Leichhardt | for his journey in Australia | |
| for his journey in Choa | |||
| 1850 | Antoine and Arnaud-Michel d'Abbadie | for their journey in Abyssinia | |
| 1855 | Captain Robert McClure | for discovering the North-west Passage | |
| 1856 | Henry Barth | for his journey to Timbuktu | |
| 1857 | David Livingstone | for his journeys across southern Africa | |
| 1858 | Elisha Kent Kane | for his journey to the Arctic regions | |
| 1859 | Hermann, Robert and Adolf von Schlagintweit | for their explorations in Tibet and Turkestan | |
| 1860 | Richard Francis Burton and John Hanning Speke | for their exploration of the great lakes of east Africa | |
| 1861 | for his exploration of the Khorassan | ||
| 1864 | Henri Duveyrier | for his exploration of the Algerian Sahara and the country of the Touareg | |
| 1867 | Sir Samuel White Baker | for his journey in equatorial Africa | |
| 1869 | Ernest Doudart de Lagrée and Francis Garnier | for their exploration of Indo-China | |
| 1872 | Alfred Grandidier | for his exploration of Madagascar | |
| 1876 | Gustav Nachtigal | for his journey across central Africa | |
| 1877 | Verney Lovett Cameron | for his journey across equatorial Africa | |
| 1878 | Henry Morton Stanley | for his journey across equatorial Africa | |
| 1879 | Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza | for his exploration of the Upper Ogoue | |
| 1880 | Adolf Nordenskjold | the Northwest Passage | |
| 1881 | Major Alexandre de Serpa Pinto | for his journey across Africa | |
| 1884 | Alphonse Milne-Edwards | for underwater surveying and dredging from the ships Travailleur and Talisman | |
| 1886 | Hermenegildo de Brito Capelo | for his journey across southern Africa | |
| 1890 | Captain Louis Gustave Binger | for his journey of exploration from the Upper Niger to the Gulf of Guinea | |
| 1891 | Gabriel Bonvalot | for his journey from Siberia to Tonkin via Tibet | |
| 1893 | Parfait-Louis Monteil | for his journey from Senegal to Tripoli via Chad | |
| 1896 | Prince Henri of Orléans | for his journey from the Gulf of Tonkin to the Gulf of Bombay, 1895 | |
| 1897 | Fridtjof Nansen | for his crossing of the Arctic Sea, 1893–1896 | |
| 1898 | for his crossing of equatorial Africa, 1894–1897 | ||
| 1899 | Emile Gentil | for exploration in Africa, from the Congo to Chad, 1895–1898 | |
| 1900 | Jean-Baptiste Marchand | for the Congo-Nile expedition, 1896–1899 | |
| 1901 | Fernand Foureau | for the (Foureau-Lamy) trans-Sahara expedition, 1898–1900 | |
| 1902 | Captain Paul Joalland | for the (Joalland-Meynier) expedition to central Africa, 1899–1901 | |
| 1903 | Auguste Pavie | for his exploration of Indo-China, 1879–1895 | |
| 1904 | Sven Hedin | for his explorations in central Asia, 1894–1902 | |
| 1907 | Colonel | for his geodesic expedition at the Equator | |
| 1910 | Sir Ernest Shackleton | for exploration of Antarctica | |
| 1912 | Jean-Baptiste Charcot | for his Antarctic expeditions | |
| 1913 | Raoul Amundsen | for the discovery of the South Pole | |
| 1914 | Admiral Robert E. Peary | for the discovery of the North Pole | |
| 1918 | for the expedition to central Africa | ||
| 1922 | Charles Howard-Bury | for the Everest Expedition of 1921 | |
| Charles Granville Bruce | for the Everest Expedition of 1922 | ||
| 1923 | Sir Aurel Stein | for explorations in central Asia | |
| Rosita Forbes | for her exploration of the Kufra oasis | ||
| 1924 | Ole Olufsen | for his journey to the French Sahara | |
| for the journey from Cameroon to Cairo via Lake Tchad and the Libyan desert | |||
| 1925 | Baron Adrien de Guerlache de Gomery | for the Belgian Antarctic Expedition 1897–1899 and 1905: 07–09 | |
| 1927 | Charles Lindbergh | for the first crossing of the Atlantic by aeroplane | |
| 1928 | for exploration in Angola | ||
| 1929 | Ahmed Hassanein and Prince Kamal el Dine Hussein | for their exploration of the eastern Sahara | |
| 1932 | Wickliffe Preston Draper | for the Augiéras-Draper Expedition (Southern Sahara), 1927–1928 | |
| 1933 | and | for the Citroën Expedition to Central Asia, 1931–1932 | |
| 1939 | Alexander Hamilton Rice | for his exploration of the Amazon Basin | |
| 1950 | French expedition to the Himalayas and Maurice Herzog | for the first ascent of Annapurna | |
| 1952 | Théodore Monod | for expeditions and studies in Africa | |
| 1953 | Augustin Lombard | for his study trip up Mount Everest | |
| 1954 | Georges Houot and Pierre Willm | for the first dive into the deep ocean in a Bathyscaphe | |
| 1955 | John Hunt, Baron Hunt, Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay | for the first ascent of Mount Everest | |
| 1957 | Henri Lhote | for his travel and archaeological work in the Sahara | |
| 1958 | Vivian Fuchs | for the first transantarctic expedition and complete crossing of the continent | |
| 1970 | Neil Armstrong, Edwin Aldrin and Michael Collins | for the first landing on the Moon | |
| 1977 | Germaine Dieterlen | for Ethnology, especially the black civilisations (Dogon, Molinké and Bambara) | |
| 1979 | Norbert Casteret | for Speleology | |
| 1991 | Jean-Louis Étienne | for his transantarctic expedition | |
| 1998 | Patrice Franceschi | for his New Guinea expedition | |
| 1999 | Georges Pernoud | for his television series Thalassa | |
| 2001 | Yann Arthus-Bertrand | for the sum of his photographic work | |
| 2002 | Jean-Yves Empereur | for his archaeological discoveries in Egypt, notably in the port of Alexandria (underwater archaeology) | |
| 2003 | Nicolas Hulot | for his expeditions, his television programs and his works | |
| 2004 | for his Arctic expedition of 2000–2004 | ||
| 2005 | Jean-Marc Pineau | for having retraced on foot the journey of René Caillié and his account of the journey Sur les pas de René Caillié | |
| 2006 | Érik Orsenna | for the sum of his work, Salut au Grand Sud and Voyages aux Pays du Coton | |
| 2007 | Jean Raspail | for the sum of his work |