Historic Map : Perthes Map of The Northern South America, 1850, Vintage Wall Art

This is a fascinating example of the 1850 Justus Perthes map of the northern part of South America. It covers the northern part of the continent including Panama, New Granada, Venezuela, ecuador, Peru, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile and Guyana. Shows Bolivia's claims to the Atacama Desert and a narrow strip of land along the Pacific coast – valuable territory that was subsequently lost to Chile and Peru. Perthes' map is highly detailed with both political and physical data. Various cities, mountains, roads, rivers and an assortment of additional topographical details are noted.

Much of South America was, at this time, embroiled in or about to become embroiled in, severe civil strife. The new nations, freed from Spanish dominance though various wars of liberation in the previous decades, were struggling with their newfound independence in an attempt create stable and prosperous governments. Most dissolved into civil war between 1858 and 1864.

Political and regional borders are highlighted in outline color. Unlike other cartographic publishers of the period, the Justus Perthes firm did not transition to lithographic printing techniques. Instead, all of their maps are copper plate engravings and hence offer a level of character and depth of detail that was impossible to find in lithography or wain x-process engraving. All text is in German. Issued as plate no. 49b in the 1854 edition of Stieler's Hand-Atlas.