Charte von Africa nach neuesten astronomischen Beobachtungen un Reisen berichttight un gezeichnet

Early-19th Century German atlas map of Africa marking areas under colonial control and important trading areas.

Along the north and west coasts of Africa and the islands surrounding the Continent, a great amount of detail is provided. Names of regions, towns, and cities, particularly around important colonial strongholds and trading ports such as the Congo, the Ivory Coast, Egypt, and the Cape of Good Hope and provided and major cities are marked with a small city icon.

There are small annotations in italics across the map that describe the make up of the local landscape such as the trees and plants that grow there, or predictions about the courses of the river systems. the map has been very finely engraved, and includes handsome topographical detail, with hachuring to show mountainous regions and stipple to show the deserts. The interior of the Continent is largely unexplored and marked as “Unbekannte länder” [Unknown lands]. It was not until the mid and latter half of the 19th Century that European explorers and missionaries traversed these areas.

Johann Christoph Matthais Reinecke (1770-1818) was a German polymath and well known palaeontologist, and the official cartographer to the Geographical Institute in Weimar, which produced some of the finest world atlases in Germany during the 19th Century.

Original hand colour. (SL) [AFR4788