Christopher Columbus never did land in what is currently classified as the United States. In fact, reasonable arguments can be made that, despite being credited with its discovery, Christopher Columbus never set foot on anything currently called "America" until his third voyage and by that time had already been beaten to mainland discovery by other adventurers.

During his first voyage in 1492, Columbus reached an island he would call San Salvador, what is now known as the Bahamas. On this first voyage he also reached Cuba, Hispaniola, and Haiti but never came close to the mainland continent. In subsequent voyages, Columbus would only reach the mainland twice: once on his third voyage when he reached the Paria Peninsula in 1498 and once on his fourth voyage when he reached Honduras and hug along the Central American coastline sailing by Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and stopping briefly in Panama.

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Where did Christopher Columbus really land when he thought he was in Asia?

In August of 1492, Christopher Columbus headed west across the Atlantic Ocean in a quest for a sea route to India. In October of the same year, he made landfall in a new world. Columbus believed that he had reached the East Indies, but in reality, he was in a place that is now called the Bahamas. When Columbus met with the natives, they told him that their land was called Guanahani. Columbus named the island San Salvador. Salvador is translated as savior and is a reference to Jesus Christ.

There is considerable speculation as to where Columbus truly landed. Most are willing to accept that he landed on the island of San Salvador in the Bahamas. Other candidates include Samana Cay, Plana Cays, and the Grand Turk Island, all in the Bahamas. These places are all very small islands.

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Where did Christopher Columbus land?

Christopher Columbus was an Italian ship captain and explorer who made a number of voyages to the New World in service to the Spanish crown. When Christopher Columbus set off on his first voyage across the Atlantic, he believed he was heading for Asia ("the Indies"), and for all his life insisted that he had, indeed, landed there. Such was his insistence that he termed the native peoples he met "Indians." Of course, we know today that the lands he visited were islands of the Caribbean, the coast of South America, and Central America. Columbus and his men named the first island they visited San Salvador. There is some dispute whether the island currently bearing the name is the same Columbus visited, as records from the time aren't very precise when it comes to location. Regardless of where the island actually is—or was—Columbus's first footfalls in the New World were made on San Salvador.

Where did Columbus land? 

Christopher Columbus set out on his first journey to find a passage by ocean to Asia.  After a long sea voyage, he and his crew landed on an island in what is now the Bahamas.  Columbus did not know that two entire continents lay between Europe and Asia.  Instead, he thought that he had landed in India.  He started calling the inhabitants of the Caribbean islands "Indians," which is a term sometimes used even today to refer to Native Americans.  

Columbus claimed every seemingly uninhabited place where he and his crew landed for Spain.  He saw Cuba and thought it to be China.  When he and his crew went ashore on Hispaniola, he assumed they were in Japan.  Columbus returned to Spain and later made other journeys.  On one of his subsequent journeys, Columbus landed on what is now the island of Puerto Rico.