Great Lakes of Africa 1871

Thirteen lakes of southern Africa bordering ten nations jointly consist of what is famously known as the Great Lakes of Africa. At the time of African exploration by Europeans, these lakes were of mystery as the explorers and colonists needed help mapping the actual shape and size because of inaccessible routes. And hence, many maps of the 18th and 19th centuries have incorrect or 'in-progress' maps of these lakes marked by arbitrary shapes according to the best-traversed routes chalked by different cartographers. 

The list of lakes is as follows: 

1. Turkana (Kenya / Ethiopia)
2. Kyoga (Uganda)
3. Mwitanzige or Albert (Uganda / DRC)
4. Rweru or Rwitanzigye or Edward (DRC / Uganda)
5. Kivu (Rwanda / DRC)
6. Tanganyika (Burundi / DRC / Tanzania / Zambia)
7. Nyanza or Victoria (Tanzania / Kenya / Uganda)
8. Rukwa (Tanzania)
9. Mweru (DRC / Zambia)
10. Malawi or Nyasa (Malawi / Tanzania / Mozambique)
11. Kariba (Zimbabwe / Zambia)
12. Chilwa (Mozambique)
13. Bangweulu (Zambia)

By the mid-1800s, almost the entire southern Africa that consists of today's South Africa, Lesotho, Eswatini (Swaziland), Zambia, Zimbabwe and Zambia were explored by various explorers such as Sir James Alexander (1853), Charles Tilstone Beke (1840), David Livingstone (1849), Henry Gassiot (1851) and Francis Galton (1851). Mungo Park explored much of western Africa along the brush-grass Savanna in the 18th-19th century (1795-1805). In contrast, Nigeria and Niger were explored by John Duncan (1841), Hugh Clapperton (1825), Richard Lander (1826) etc. Similarly, other explorers routed around Lake Chad (or Lake Taad), the Nile River valley and the Ethiopian highlands in the 19th century. But one region was largely unexplored and untouched, forming the basis of almost all African rivers: The Great Lakes. According to an 1853 map by A. Petermann, except for a short exploration made by Johannes Rebmann and Johann Ludwig Krapf around Mombasa to Mount Kenya and Kilimanjaro in 1847-49, and an 18th-century single route between Quelimane (in Mozambique) and Kazembe region (Zambia) in 1796, nothing much was explored in this region till the mid-19th century.

In 1846, the Portuguese merchant Candido José da Costa Cardoso discovered Lake Nyasaland, that got renamed in 1964 as Lake Malawi. In 1855, David Livingstone became the first European to witness the majestic Victoria Falls on the Zambezi River (Zimbabwe / Zambia); in 1874 navigated around Lake Tanganyika and Lake Victoria. Although the two water bodies were explored in 1853 by Richard Francis Burton and John Hanning Speke. In 1862, the northern source of Lake Victoria was discovered by Speke, the draining of the River Nile into the lake. In 1864, Samuel Baker observed seeing from the Rwenzori Mountains (archaically known as the 'Mountains of the Moon') what he calls Luta Nzige or Lake Albert. Henry Morton Stanley discovered the waterbody draining into what he called Lake Edward in 1887-89. 

But this doesn't mean no civilisation existed in the Great Lakes region of eastern Africa before the Europeans entered with their 'scramble for Africa' game plan. African kingdoms have always flourished in all parts of the continent, and much like others, the history of Africa from an African perspective is largely less-heard. Just because a certain landmass is marked as 'unexplored' on European maps doesn't mean it actually was. Eastern Africa has been loaded with several kingdoms and empires, the most famous being the Swahili-speaking dominions of Zanzibar and the numerous vassal states on the eastern coast from Somalia to Tanzania and the larger Hamadian Sultanate of Utetera (subordinate to Zanzibar) that covered the Congo basin majorly. The Bantu-speaking kingdom of Buganda (predecessor to today's Uganda) lay on the coast of Lake Victoria. In contrast, much smaller kingdoms such as Wanga and Mwanza were spread around it in today's Kenya and Tanzania nations. Another subordinate to the Zanzibar and Omani Sultanate, the Ujiji Sultanate, edged Lake Tanganyika in Tanzania. Lake Nyasaland or Nyasa or Malawi had a range of sub-kingdoms under Zanzibar-Omani rule, such as Yao, Mirembo, Jumbe, Ngonde and Chikusi. These would be spread in today's Zambia, Mozambique and Tanzania regions. The smaller lakes of Bangweulu and Mweru neighboured sub-states, such as the Emirates of Tabwa and Ulungu, in today's Zambia. These native communities were clubbed and aligned to form definite sovereign states of Burundi, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, Zaïre (today's DRC), Kenya, Malawi and Zambia by colonists such as the Belgians, British and Germans. Independent to the Zanzibar-Omani Sultanate existed the Maravi Kingdom between 1480 to 1891, spread across today's northern Mozambique, Malawi and Zambia. Around the lake region, the ones edging Lake Victoria were Bunyoro, Buganda, Toro, Ankole, Bunyara and Rwanda etc. 

By 1900, these kingdoms were shuffled and segregated into definite boundaries such as the Eastern Africa Protectorate (Tanzania), Zanzibar, the Belgian Congo, NE Rhodesia (Zambia), etc. The shapes and boundaries of these lakes also took accurate shape by this time, which earlier was sketched as arbitrary irregular quadrilaterals. Their names were also quite bizarre, and some were marked only to be later removed as these were imaginary water bodies. Carlo Piaggia, an Italian explorer who extensively mapped Uganda and the southern Nile valley in the 19th century, marked an ill-shaped lake in the Orientale (today divided into Haut-Uele and Ituri provinces) province of the Democratic Republic of Congo. An 1871 dated map, 'Chart of the World on Mercators' Projection' by Hermann Berghaus, depicts this lake. Going slightly east on the same map towards the DRC-Uganda border is marked a certain Mioutan Lake, that's probably a combination of today's Lake Edward and Lake Albert. Maybe the explorers didn't chart the land between these lakes, depicted as Unjoro on certain maps. Also, when the maps were improved, Lake Albert was known as Lake Mwutan, and even today, its official name is Lake Mwitanzige. All three words have the exact origin as their etymology. Additionally, the official name of Lake Edward is Lake Rwitanzige and a former corruption of its name, Luta Nsige, can be found on old maps. 

Coming to the largest and the most important lake in Africa - Lake Victoria. On old 19th-century African maps, a nearly perfect boundary of the Ukerewe Sea is mentioned as the source of the White Nile. The lake is also mentioned as Victoria Nyanza as the cartography improves before finally adopting Lake Victoria. The other two major lakes - Lake Tanganyika and Lake Malawi were sketched more or less in a similar shape for a long time, although they may have alternate names. Lake Malawi was known as Lake Nyasa or Lake Nyassi, and it was a long balloon-shaped stretch of water body going up to the tip of Lake Tanganyika. Alternate names were Uniamesi Sea and even Ukerewe Sea seen stretched to this water body, thus meaning all three water bodies were clubbed together on older maps. But on the 1871 Hermann Berghaus map, these lakes are shown distinctly. Lake Tanganyika has an alternative name Ujiji Sea, but it is mostly known as Lake Tanganyika. 

Other smaller lakes were mentioned as Rusisi (Kivu; Rusisi is a corruption of the word Ruzizi after the river of the same name), Moero (Mweru), Bangweolo (Bangweulu), etc. It was only after 1900 that these names were properly chalked out and marked. 

Another interesting feature was the list of nations marked on this (the Hermann Berghaus) map significantly different from today's sovereign states. Uniamueze, Matiamvo's Dominions, Zambezia, Mozambique, Zanguebar, Galla, while kingdoms such as Cazembe, Londa, Lobale, Ujiji, Uganda, Ukinde etc., are marked on this map. The map here is a recreation of the version originally sketched in 1871.