Evolving Ideas: J. B. d’Anville’s Maps of Southern Africa, 1725–1749.

This article focuses on the changes made to the cartography of southern Africa between 1725 and 1749 by the French geographer Jean Baptiste Bourguignon d’Anville. The maps in question were produced in collaboration with the Portuguese ambassador Dom Luís da Cunha as part of d’Anville’s plan to demonstrate what lay between the Portuguese colonies of Angola in the west and Mozambique in the east and to establish a link across the continent. The maps he produced in the first two phases of his mapping of southern Africa (1725–1731) echoed the traditionalhorror vacui. The vast blank that appeared on his map ofAfriqueof 1749, however, has to be seen as d’Anville intended—the integration of empty space on a map with Enlightenment rationalization of geography. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]