Introduction
The earliest detailed maps of Scotland were those by Timothy Pont (c.1564-c.1614), forming the first atlas of Scotland and being part of Joan Bleau’s (c. 1599-1673) world atlas Theatrum orbis terrarum, sive Atlas novus. The maps of Scotland in his atlas can be found here, Pont’s maps can be found here. Pont was the first to detail the mountains, place names and geographical features.
Chinese map of Africa 1389
The earliest representation of Africa was by Chinese traders who had been visiting the continent since the 1st century or even earlier, taking animals back to China and in some cases staying and marrying local people. By the 1389 the Chinese created a map made of silk, covering more than 17 square metres in size. It is thought to be a copy of a map sculpted into rock 20 or 30 years earlier.
An unknown Portuguese cartographer created the earliest European map of Africa in 1502 who drew the Cantino planisphere It forms part of a larger atlas of the world, as the Portuguese knew it, after their great voyages of exploration at the end of the 15th century to the Americas, Africa and India. It is considered to be the earliest extant nautical chart where places (in Africa and parts of Brazil and India) are depicted according to their astronomically observed latitudes.
Cantino planisphere with Africa in the centre
Detail of its construction and use can be found here.
From the eighteenth century onwards a large portion of the African coast had been mapped, but areas in the centre of the continent were often labelled “unexplored” waiting for explorers, missionaries, slavers and traders to fill in the gaps.
Comparing maps of Scotland and Africa from 1817 through to 1925 shows how much had been learned both of the African continent and of Scotland in terms of detail recorded. The examples chosen are of those published or created in Scotland, usually from Glasgow or Edinburgh. Many were created as part of a world atlas; the maps of Scotland are also from the same atlases for comparison. Many other maps were drawn to accompany many of the travel writings by explorers and missionaries, such as the Map of the Lake Region of Eastern Africa and of the Upper Nile Basin by Alexander Keith Johnston who was both an explorer and cartographer.
