Sebastian Münster, Map of Africa (c. 1554 CE)

Africa was one of the first continents charted by European cartographers, indicating interactions across Afroeurasia. Though indigenous Africans made their own maps, most early maps of Africa are from a European perspective. including this one from Sebastian Münster (1488 – 1552), a German cartographer who published two popular atlases, Geographia (1540-1552) and Cosmographia (1544-1628). He solicited descriptions and maps from German scholars and foreigners that allowed him to include up-to-date information on the known continents: Europe, Africa, Asia, America. Earlier maps of Africa, including those influenced by Ptolemy, showed only northern Africa or depicted the continent as uncircumnavigable prior to the voyage of Bartolomeu Dias to the Cape of Good Hope in 1488. Mapping the interior of Africa did not begin in earnest until after World War II and so early western maps of Africa contained many inaccuracies and mythologies about Africa. This map, for example, depicts a one-eyed giant seated over Nigeria and Cameroon, representing the mythical tribe of the “Monoculi”; a dense forest in today’s Sahara Desert; and an elephant filling southern Africa. Several kingdoms are noted, including that of the legendary Prester John, who Europeans believed was ruler of a fabled Christian land overflowing with gold somewhere in Africa or Asia, and who inspired countless missions aimed at expanding European and Christian authority across the globe. Few coastal towns are noted, and there is no Madagascar. A simplified caravel, similar to those used by the Portuguese and Christopher Columbus sails along the southern coast.