1750 French map of the north east of Africa
Many of the features on this map seem largely imaginary. Some of the names on the Somalia coast are of trading ports known in antiquity but no long in existence in 1750 e.g. Opone, Mosylon, Avalites and Maleos
Djibouti, 1929
From “Atlas France”, 1929. Click twice on image to enlarge
I drove to Djibouti from Hargeysa (to the south of this map) in 1983 and 1984. We got the coast somewhere to the east of Zeyla, I think, then crossed the border at Loyada, further NW along the coast. The (french built) Djibouti border post was like something out of the film Beau Geste. On one occasion we drove our 4 wheel drive Toyota inland from Djibouti town ,across very rough tracks, to the shores of Lac Assal, just inland from the head of the Gulf of Tadjoura, seen here. It seems to have less water in it than I was there. Where we stopped there was a hot water spring feeding into the lake,which was incredibly salty. The shoreline and lake floor was covered in salt crystals, some of which were too sharp to stand on.
Mogadishu, circa 1935
Possibly from “dall’atlante internazionale del T.C.I” , an atlas covering all of Somalia and possibly Ethiopia and Eritrea, published in Milan in 1935s. If you have any knowledge of the atlas, please let me know
Somali coast, circa 1688
Title: Coast of Zanguebar and Aien
Creator: Morden, Robert
Place of Publication: England
Date: 1688
Published in Modern’s Atlas Terestris.
More information: http://imagesearchnew.library.illinois.edu/cdm/singleitem/collection/africanmaps/id/1066/rec/9
Described as “Rare early English map of the East African Coastline, perhaps the earliest obtainable English map of the region” The above version seems to have been colored after removal from the atlas
North coast of Somalia, circa 1857
Click on image to enlarge
“Karte der Somali – Kuste und des Golf’s von Aden. Th. von Heuglin’s Reise, September bis December 1857″
Somaliland Protectorate, 1948
“Compiled and Drawn by the Directorate of Colonial Surveys. Photolithographed and printed by War Office, 1948″
Click on image to enlarge
Kismayu, circa 1889
The map comes from ” The Earth and its Inhabitants: Africa (South and East Africa)”, authored by Elisee Reclus and published by the D. Appleton and Company. 1889. Pages 407-409
KISMAYU-BRAVA.-MERKA.
“Kismayu, or Kisimayau is the last anchorage on the Somali coast, going north eastwards in the direction of Cape Guardafui, to which the term port can be applied. But even this place is little used except as a harbour of refuge, so little developed is the movement of exchanges along this inhospitable seaboard. Nevertheless, Kismayu is the natural outlet of the vast basin of the Juba, which reaches the sea about 12 miles to the north-east. In 1869 this town did not yet exist, but in that year some Somali emigrants from the Upper Juba Valley, and especially from the neighbourhood of Bardera, or Bat Tir, the chief market of the interior, established themselves at this favourable point of the coast, and opened direct commercial relations with Zanzibar. Later some members of the Mijurtin tribe, the most energetic traders on the whole seaboard, also settled in the same place, the population of which had already risen to eight thousand six hundred in the year 1873. At that time the suzerainty of the Sultan of Zanzibar was represented in Kismayu by some Arab traders and a small Baluchi garrison. In 1870 a Marseilles commercial house had hoisted the French flag in this port, but after the battle of Sedan the Sultan of Zanzibar hastened to reassert his authority over the place.
Bardera is inhabited by Mohammedans, who if not actually Wahabites, are fully as fanatical as those troublesome sectaries. They neither smoke nor take snuff, and display an almost rabid zeal in their efforts to enforce their peculiar views on the surrounding Somali populations. Hence insurrections, massacres, migrations. of tribes, and disorders of all sorts. In the year 1845, the town of Bardera was utterly destroyed by the enraged inhabitants of the district, who slew all the men and sold the women and children into bondage. A few fugitives, however, contrived to break through the fiery circle closing round the doomed city, and going northwards to the Ganane country, founded a town on the left bank of the Webi, which has flourished, and is now a great centre of trade. Bardera also again rose from its ashes, and with it was revived the old spirit of religious intolerance. Here were massacred in 1865 the two travellers Link and Von der Decken The vessel with which the unfortunate explorers had navigated the river, and which the natives had succeeded in recovering from the rapids, was till recently used by them as a ferry-boat between the two banks of the Juba”
The full text of the book is available online here (in a big .pdf file)
Berbera, circa 1889
The map comes from page 413-414 of ” The Earth and its Inhabitants: Africa (South and East Africa)”, authored by Elisee Reclus and published by the D. Appleton and Company. 1889.
Text above and below the map, and on the back side of the map, reads as follows:
MAYET – BERBERA – BULHAR 412
Other havens or roadsteads follow in the direction of the west, where Mayet (Mehet) is the seaport of the Habr Ghar-Haji people. According to the local
MAYET – BERBERA 413
tradition, here died the great Sheikh Ishak) ancestor of all the Habr or ” Grandmother” tribes, which belong to the widespread Hashiya division of the Somali race. Formerly the Somali advanced in years came from all the surrounding regions and settled near the venerated shrine, in order after death to secure a last resting-place near the remains of the founder of their nation. All the houses and cabins of Mayet were at one time grouped round about the tomb of the saint; but they have since been displaced in the direction of the west, near the mouth of a little coast-stream. Towards the north-east is visible the volcanic islet of Jebel- Tiur, or ‘Bird Mountain,” which contains a deposit of guano, and to which the English have given the name of Burnt. Island, from the colour of its lavas. The island is annually visited by about forty Arab dhows, from the port of Makalla in Hadramaut, returning laden with cargoes of this manure for their tobacco plantations.
West of Mayet follow the seaports of Heis, Ankor’, Kerem, all of which belong to the Habr Tol nation. Then, after rounding a headland, the seafarer comes in fuIl view of a deep inlet in the coast forming the important harbour of Berbera. This 3 the only thoroughly sheltered haven on the whole seaboard, and has consequently been a busy seaport from the remotest antiquity. The town still keeps the old lame of Barbaria formerly applied by the Greeks, not to any particular point, but
SOUTH AND EAST AFRICA 414
to all the coastlands skirting the south side of the Gulf of Aden. Yet notwith¬standing its obvious maritime advantages, this privileged seaport has at times been completely abandoned. Thus a war which broke out in the year 1870 between the surrounding Gadibursi and Dolbobant nations compelled all the inhabitants of Berbera temporarily to quit their homes. But under the protection of Great Britain, which has inherited all the rights of Egypt as the ruling power on this seaboard, Berbera has again become the centre of considerable commercial activity. It has now a lighthouse, piers, warehouses, and even an aqueduct, whose copious water, thermal at the fountain-head, is brought from a distance of about seven miles. Berbera is the successor of Bender Abbas, another town some ruins of which are still visible on the low-lying shores of the Tamar peninsula enclosing the road¬stead on the north and north-west. Lying 160 miles to the south of Aden, and nearly under the same meridian, Berbera shares with that town and with Zaila, another port belonging to England, the whole of the commercial movement in the western parts of the Gulf of Aden.
On the beach at Bullhar, about 45 miles farther west, lies the market-place where the Berbera traders meet the caravans coming from Harrar and from all the Somali and Galla Lands to ,the south and west of that place. During the busy season, from October to January, as many as 15,000 persons are attracted to this place. Then, after all the commodities have changed hands, the tents are struck, the long strings of camels laden with their purchases move off in all directions towards the interior, the Arab dhows set sail, and solitude once more prevails along the seaboard. The Somali prefer the Bulhar market to that of Berbera itself, because they find in the, neighborhood convenient pasturages for their numerous herds and Hocks, whereas round about Berbera nothing is offered except here and there a few trailing plants and shrubs. Bulhar has unfortunately no harbour, and its surf-beaten shores are too often strewn with wreckage. The explorers who have ventured to penetrate from this point into the inland plateaux report the existence of numerous burial-places.
The most frequented trade route running south• westwards in the direction of the city of Harrar has its seaward terminus at Bulhar. But Samawanak and Dungareta have been spoken or as more convenient starting-points for the future railway, which has already ‘been projected, and which must sooner or later run through the Gadibursi territory towards the great city of the Upper Webi basin, easternmost station and bulwark of the kingdom of Shoa. Accordingly England and France have recently put forward rival claims for the possession of this future gateway to the interior of the continent from this direction. The English mean¬time retain in their hands the disputed station, recognising in return the absolute sovereignty of France over the Gulf of Tajurah, which also gives access to the inland regions from the head of the Gulf of Aden.
The full text of the book is available online here (in a big .pdf file)
Map of Mogadishu – City Centre in the1970s?
From page 5 of “Mogadishu: Pearl of the Indian Ocean” (pdf copy here)
Undated, could be in the 1970s.
“Map of the Somauli Coast Showing the Position of the Tribes…”
“….by Lieutenant C.J. Cruttenden. I.N., with additions from the Surveys of Capt. Owen, R.N. Liets, Barker, Christopher & Carless, I.N”
Published in the Journal of the Royal Geographical Society, London 1849
The generous description of the Nugal valley on this map reminds me another place described by a friend Axmed I J…many years ago, a place where there were “valleys of milk, valleys of honey and valleys of good pasta” :-)
Mogadishu map, 1986
Click on photo to enlarge
Produced as a folding map to go with “Mogadishu from the Air”, produced by USAID
City centre was enlarged as a separate smaller map, shown below. Numbers are explained at the top of the laerger map above.
“L’Africa Orientale – Etiopia – Somalia – Eritrea”
Click on photo to enlarge
Date: Circa 1936
Somalia Italiana: Mogadiscio
pianta con piano regolatore, credo del 1915 del Gov.Gandolfi
Source website: http://digilander.libero.it/capurromrc/!07mogadiscio.html
North-East Somalia, circa 1880
From Voyage au pays des Medjourtaines (Cap Gardufui – Afrique Orientale), par G Revoil, pages 254-269, Bulletin de la Societe de Geographie, Mars 1880
Cape Guardafui (Gees Gwardafuy, Ras Asir), then (above) and now (below)
leave a comment