Historic Maps of Costa Rica – UNESCO

The United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization’s (Unesco) World Digital Library has a couple of beautiful historic maps of Central America and Costa Rica.

Jacques Bellin (1703-72) was a prolific cartographer attached to the French Marine Office. In 1764, he published Le Petit Atlas Maritime (Small maritime atlas), a work in five volumes containing 581 maps.

Nicaragua and Costa Rica, shown in this 1764 map from the second volume of the atlas, were at the time provinces of the Captaincy General of Guatemala, part of the Spanish Empire.

The left side of the image above shows the title page of Bellin’s atlas. Nicaragua and Costa Rica both declared independence from Spain in 1821.

This second map below shows Central America including the States of Guatemala, Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua & Costa Rica, the Territories of Belize & Mosquito, with Parts of Mexico, Yucatan & New Granada

John Baily (1811-1850) was an Englishman who lived for many years in Central America. He was employed in 1837-38 by the government of Nicaragua to survey a potential canal route from the Caribbean Sea to the Pacific Ocean. This map, published in London in 1850, was accompanied by a book, Central America, published separately, which contained much of the detailed information that Baily gathered to make this map.

The map shows four possible canal routes: one surveyed for the government of Costa Rica in 1848 by the Danish engineer Andres Oersted, Baily’s own proposed route of 1837-38, a route across present-day Panama proposed in 1844 by the French engineer Napoleon Garella, and a route across Nicaragua favored by Prince (and later Emperor) Louis Napoleon of France.

The drawings at the lower left highlight the engineering challenges posed by building a canal that would have to traverse inland hills and mountains and account for the different sea levels (caused by tides) on the Atlantic and Pacific sides of the canal. Baily’s map and writings frequently were cited in later debates about where and how the canal should be built.

Andrew Makarik

to@welovecostarica.com

Andrew Makarik is the main editor of WeLoveCostaRica, a fan of this sunny country. He is also a loving husband and a has a lovely daughter. By being a devoted family man and the biggest Costa Rica fan, he wants to make more people feel at home there. WeLoveCostaRica unites people and helps them find new home or a new travel destination. This website is a friendly community where everyone can find not only information, but also new friends and travel pals. Andrew is also passionate about IT and programming, so he himself maintains a friendly atmosphere in this cozy environment of WeLoveCostaRica.com.