El Dorado (Spanish for “The Gilded One”), a legendary Indian chief of 16th-century northern South America. Reportedly, his subjects had covered him with gold dust at an annual festival. El Dorado came to refer to the region itself, and eventually to any mythical city or country with great wealth. In the 16th century the Spanish made a number of expeditions searching for El Dorado, but neither they nor other explorers ever found the region.