The Fake Mountains of Africa

Did you know for almost 100 years a mountain range in Africa showed on world maps but didn’t exist. On this episode we unveil the mystery of the fake mountains of Africa.

Back in the 15 and 1600’s Europeans made quick work of mapping out the continent of Africa but what was inside remained a mystery for decades. Tribes native to this land prevented many of the explorers from venturing too deep into the continent halting the completion of their maps. This map from 1839 shows an area of western africa that was mapped out and controlled by european settlers. The French and British control over Upper Guinea, Senegambia and Gambia was ever changing but this set of peaks called the Mountains of Kong didn’t exist.

Around 1798 an explorer by the name of Mungo Park, this guy with the stylish hair, set off on an expedition to explore Africa’s interior. What came from this trip with help from English cartographer James Rennell was a map that showed the Mountains of Kong. Now there are some foothills in the region Mungo Park was exploring but it’s uncertain why it was mapped all the way across the continent. In Rennel’s map it shows the Niger river stopping at the Mountains of Kong vs flowing all the way to the ocean. A map released in 1805 had the Mountains of Kong fully illustrated along with the also fictional Mountains of the Moon which connect to Kong on the East side of Africa.

A merchant named Diogenes searching for the source of the Nile claimed to have found it, being a group of large mountains with snow capped peaks that people native to to the region called the Mountains of the Moon. He said beneath the snowy mountains were 2 great lakes which today we can assume he was talking about Lake Victoria and Lake Malawi. The mountain range he called the Mountains of the Moon appears to be the mountains along the border of Uganda and the Congo.

In 1887 Louis Gustave Binger had established that the Mountains of Kong and the Moon were both fictitious as his 2 year expedition to chart the Niger River revealed no such mountains.

Most cartographers removed the make belief mountains from their maps but both Kong and Moon showed up in Bartholomew's Oxford Advanced Atlas in 1928 and believe it or not in Goode’s World Atlas in 1995.

Check out some of our other videos:

Top 10 Fruits You’ve Never Heard Of Part 2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRdgPyZF45g&feature=youtu.be
Top 10 Fruits You’ve Never Heard Of
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKTej1u-7-0&feature=youtu.be

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Intro music thanks to Machinmasound:
Rallying the Defense:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ruPk4RD19Nw

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