European exploration of Africa

Lore & Background

European exploration of Africa's interior was largely a 19th-century phenomenon. At the beginning of that century, knowledge of sub-Saharan geography was still limited. Expeditions exploring Southern Africa were made during the 1830s and 1840s, so that around the midpoint of the 19th century and the beginning of the colonial Scramble for Africa, the unexplored parts were limited to what would turn out to be the Congo Basin and the African Great Lakes. However, by the 1860s, the African Great Lakes region had been largely explored by Speke, Burton, and Livingstone, meaning that by that decade the Congo Basin remained the primary unexplored region. The Congo Basin was then actively explored in the 1870s and 1880s, meaning the 'Heart of Africa' was indeed one of the last remaining 'blank spots' alongside the Arctic, Antarctic, and interior of the Amazon Basin. It was left for 19th-century European explorers, including those searching for the famed sources of the Nile, notably John Hanning Speke, Richard Francis Burton, David Livingstone, and Henry Morton Stanley, to push the frontiers of knowledge, though exploration continued beyond the 1870s with expeditions like Stanley's Congo crossing (1874–1877) and the Emin Pasha Relief Expedition (1887–1889). After this, the general geography of Africa was known, but it was left to further expeditions during the 1880s onward, notably those led by Oskar Lenz, to flesh out more detail such as the continent's geological makeup.

Reader's Guide

European exploration of Africa transformed global understanding of the continent's geography, but it was a slow and uneven process. The 19th-century expeditions that finally mapped the Congo Basin and the Great Lakes were driven by scientific curiosity, commercial interests, and the search for the Nile's sources. These explorations directly preceded the Scramble for Africa, during which European powers partitioned the continent. The work of explorers like Livingstone and Stanley became legendary, but the article notes that prior to the 19th century, Muslim slave traders had already established far-reaching networks across the Sahel. European exploration thus completed a picture that had long been partially known to others, and it set the stage for colonial rule.

Did You Know?

• European exploration of sub-Saharan Africa began with the Age of Discovery in the 15th century, pioneered by the Kingdom of Portugal under Henry the Navigator.
• The African Great Lakes region was largely explored by Speke, Burton, and Livingstone by the 1860s, and the Congo Basin was actively explored in the 1870s and 1880s.
• Major expeditions like Stanley's Congo crossing (1874–1877) and the Emin Pasha Relief Expedition (1887–1889) occurred after the 1870s, disproving the idea that exploration was completed by that decade.