Intelligence Mapping of British East Africa - digitisation begins - Maps and views blog
▻http://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/magnificentmaps/2015/02/intelligence-mapping-of-british-east-africa-digitisation-b
With generous funding from the Indigo Trust, the British Library has started to catalogue and digitise a unique archive of military intelligence maps of British East Africa - a region encompassing modern-day Kenya, Uganda and neighbouring parts of South Sudan, Ethiopia and Somalia. The maps are held in the War Office Archive and were created by British intelligence officers, surveyors and cartographers between the years 1890-1940.
▻http://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/.a/6a00d8341c464853ef01b8d0d05241970c-800wi
During this period the requirement to administer newly-created British protectorates in Africa brought with it the need for mapping of a new order in terms of volume, scale and subject matter. As a result, the archive represents both a milestone in the history of the cartography of Africa and a goldmine of historical information for the modern-day researcher.
The example below is finely executed in watercolours and coloured inks, and shows a region to the north and east of the Nile River in north-western Uganda. It was drawn in 1901, at a time when the area was under British administration within the Uganda Protectorate, and represents the first systematic survey of the area.
#cartographie_historiques #cartes_anciennes #british_library