From Track to Territory: German Cartographic Penetration of Africa, c. 1860–1900
From Track to Territory: German Cartographic Penetration of Africa, c. 1860–1900

Summary/Abstract: The article attempts to describe some cartographic developments, and the interests and ideology they advanced, that link African explorers’ itinerary maps with the political maps that depict the entire continent as partitioned amongst European colonial powers. German sources from the second half of the nineteenth century illustrate how horizons of vision, survey and representation are pushed until they clash and form demarcations between political territories, leaving no ‘uncharted’ and consequently ‘unclaimed’ space.

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