Mapping South Africa - Andrew Duminy

A Historical Survey of South African Maps and Charts

Mapping South Africa will be welcomed as a landmark in providing the first survey of the fascinating story of maps and mapmaking in the subcontinent. Beginning with the Portuguese voyages of exploration in the late 15th century, the book proceeds to discuss the attempts of the Dutch and then of the British to chart and lay claim to the vast and expanding landscape of the Cape Colony.

Subsequent chapters deal with maps of the Eastern Cape, where a series of frontier wars over almost a hundred years led to an outpouring of cartography. In colonial Natal and the Boer Republics of the Transvaal and Free State, cartography was driven by the dictates of colonisation and land exploitation. It was as a result of the Anglo-Boer War and of laborious trigonometrical survey work that the mapping of South Africa reached new heights and set new standards that would be extended and consolidated after Union in 1910.

Throughout his book the author reveals a close appreciation of the relations between science, exploration and cartography and highlights the role played by individuals as well as institutions in producing maps of increasing accuracy and detail.

Mapping South Africa will long remain a standard work of its kind, admired for its informative text and for the beautiful re-productions it contains of almost a hundred maps.