Historic Map : Boulton and Anville Wall Map of Africa (Most Important 18th cntry map of Africa) , 1794, Vintage Wall Art

This is probably the most important map of Africa produced in the 18th century. Largely based upon the earlier D'Anville map, this map has been enlarged and expanded by Samuel Boulton. Depicts the continent in full with insets of the Gold Coast (or Ivory Coast, or Guinea). This map is unique in that it is a serious attempt to compile all of the accurate scientific knowledge of the African continent available at the time. In contrast to many other Africa maps of the period there almost no attempt to fill the "unknown" regions of the interior with fictitious beasts, kingdoms, and geological features. Boulton himself advertises "The inland parts of Africa being but very little known and the names of the regions and countries which fill that vast tract of land being for the greatest part placed by conjecture it may be judged how absurd are the divisions traced in some maps and why they are not followed in this. Despite this, this map actually does provide a wealth of information both in the form of a gazetteer printed in framed text boxes here and there on the map, as well as political and geographical features. This map bears up to almost endless perusal and volumes could be composed on its content. Generally following Ptolemy, Boulton includes a number of mysterious river systems which seem to appear out of nowhere and run to nowhere. In the southern half of Africa there is considerably less information on the interior save for those lands mapped by the Portuguese along the Congo and Zambezi Rivers. Just north of Monomotapa we find an embryonic representation of Lake Malawi, here called Maravi. In South Africa the Dutch Company is strongly established and the region is well mapped well into the interior. Prepared by Samuel Boulton and published by Laurie & Whittle in Kitchin's 1794 General Atlas .