Map of the continent of Africa taken from the Atlas van der Hagen, Koninklijke Bibliotheek, The Hague, Part 4. This map of Africa is highly inaccurate, except for the coastline. This is characteristic of most of the maps of Africa published during the 17th and 18th centuries, and not only of this chart made by Nicolaas Visscher II (1649-1702). It was only in the latter half of the 19th century that the African hinterland gradually unlocked its secrets.