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Colonial Borders on School Maps. Sydow-Wagner’s Methodical School Atlas, 1878–1928

When the first edition of Sydow-Wagner’s Methodical School Atlas (Sydow-Wagners methodischer Schul-Atlas) left the printing press in Gotha in 1888, the mapmakers must have breathed a sigh of relief. For ten years, drafts had been sent back and forth—initially between Gotha and Königsberg, later between Gotha and Göttingen. Requests for rapid revisions frequently came from Gotha (e.g. Perthes 1881).

In 1878, the geographer Hermann Wagner (1840–1929) (Prauß 2025) began the extensive revision of the school atlas—two years after a decision by the Prussian Ministry of Culture to establish independent chairs of geography at universities (Brogiato 1997: 52), and at a time when colonial ambitions in the German Empire were still more fantasy than reality (Zantop/Friedrichmeyer/Lennox 1998).

As Wagner wrote in the first preface, “it is now exactly forty years since Emil von Sydow († 1873) emerged with his school atlas, a work epoch-making for its time […].” He continued: “However, the two atlases bearing his name had long since become so outdated that they could no longer meet the demands of a newly awakened period of geographical study and instruction. Something new had to take their place.”1 (Wagner 1888: v)

The institutionalization of geography as an independent academic discipline at universities, along with an exploratory engagement with the world, required, in Wagner’s view, a revised methodological approach (Henniges/Meyer 2016: 43; Verein für Erdkunde in Kassel 1885). In this context, regions of the world—especially those constructed as remote and that had come under German colonial rule after 1884—came into focus. Their representation in school maps was intended not only to be topographically accurate but also to convey to students a worldview in which colonial spaces appeared as a natural part of the global order.

This article therefore takes Sydow-Wagner’s Methodical School Atlas (hereafter Sydow-Wagner) as a case study and asks how colonial territories of the German Empire were cartographically represented in a school atlas and how these representations changed across editions from the first in 1888 to the eighteenth in 1928. The focus lies less on colonial policy itself than on the process of mapmaking and the gradual inscription of colonial spaces into school geographical knowledge. Drawing on drafts, map sheets, and various editions, the article shows how colonial borders initially appeared hesitantly, later became more prominent, and, after the end of the German colonial empire, remained present in altered forms within maps for students. The Sydow-Wagner thus emerged as a medium in which geographical knowledge, cartographic practise, and colonial spatial concepts were intertwined—and one that shaped the spatial worldviews of generations of students.

Hermann Wagner and the Revision of Sydow’s School Atlas

Hermann Wagner was appointed professor of geography first at the University of Königsberg (today Kaliningrad) in 1876 and then at the Georg August University of Göttingen in 1880. He consistently described himself as a “geographical autodidact” (Wagner 1919: 2; Wagner 1924: 13). After studying natural sciences and earning a doctorate in medicine, he deemed it urgent to establish geography as a systematic field of teaching, to provide it with methodological foundations, and ultimately to create appropriate working materials (Denecke 2005: 169). These materials were primarily textbooks and cartographic works for secondary schools and universities, especially for teacher training. Wagner lamented the lack of “writings of a more general nature, particularly on geographical methodology and geographical instruction”2 (Wagner 1878: 551). This perceived deficiency was to be addressed through the revision and republication of Emil von Sydow’s Methodical Hand Atlas for the Scientific Study of Geography (1842–1844). On the basis of Adolf Stieler’s school atlas (also known as the “Kleiner Stieler”; first edition 1821), the cartographer and educator Emil von Sydow (1812–1873) had already combined political and physical maps in the 1840s, creating a didactic link between politics and geography. Von Sydow’s school atlas became a commercial success for the Gotha map publisher, with sales reaching up to 60,000 copies in some years. According to Brogiato, this success “provided the Perthes publishing house with a sound economic foundation and only then made possible the major atlas projects by Stieler, Berghaus, and Spruner von Mertz, which secured the Gotha institution a leading position in publishing cartography worldwide in the 19th century” (Brogiato 1997: 42–44; Schramm 2015: 154–156).

Plans to republish the bestselling school atlas had already emerged in the late 1870s. In the first half of 1879, Wagner sent an initial draft of “scales according to the new Wagnerian project” (“Maasstäbe nach dem neuen Wagner’schen Projekt”) (fig. 1) to Gotha, which listed the maps to be included in the revised atlas. In terms of scale, these were overview maps—appropriate for a school atlas intended to make political and topographical features comprehensible (Brogiato 1997: 43). About six months later, the publisher produced a more refined table of maps in cooperation with Wagner (“Erneuerung von Sydow’s Schul-Atlas in größerem Format”). This table formed the basis for the atlas’s conception, as becomes clear when comparing it with the table of contents of the first edition of 1888. The two are far from identical: maps disappear; others are added or renamed. Once published, however, the atlas’s structure remained largely stable up to the eighteenth edition of 1928, which Wagner himself still edited. Only one map was added in the seventh edition (1897) and two in the eighth (1899). From 1899 onward, the atlas comprised 63 main maps and 50 supplementary maps on 47 plates and was sold for 5 marks (Wagner 1899: n.p.).

Fig. 1: Hermann Wagner: Scales According to the New Wagnerian Project (“Maasstäbe nach dem neuen Wagner’schen Projekt”), 1879.
Gotha Research Library, Perthes Collection, SPA ARCH MFV 305/01, fol. 5.

The Sydow-Wagner remained important in both schools and universities. Through its very structure, it produced an ordered image of the world. Designed as a teaching aid, its maps organized the world into a didactic sequence: from the Earth as a whole to the German-speaking regions and Europe (arranged from west to east), and finally to other continents. It structured the world from a European perspective into manageable units for students.

Sources, Expertise, and the Role of the Cartographer

But where did Hermann Wagner, who lived and worked in Göttingen, obtain the knowledge required to produce these maps? Most regions of the world were unknown to him from personal experience—he did not undertake research expeditions. Instead, Wagner possessed an extensive library of around 20,000 volumes at the end of his life (Anonymous 1930). Works such as the sixth edition of Stieler’s Hand-Atlas (1871–1875), travel accounts, and Petermanns Geographische Mitteilungen provided him with reference points for revising the maps. Moreover, he participated in the knowledge and production network centered around the Gotha-based Justus Perthes publishing house. In the nineteenth century, this publisher functioned as a central node of geographical knowledge circulation (Weigel 2011; id. 2017).

Yet written sources alone did not produce cartographic knowledge. Equally crucial were the individuals who translated this knowledge into maps. As Wagner noted in the preface to the first edition:

“It is a fact still far too little known that the higher the cartographer stands, the more individual perception he brings into the maps, especially in the depiction of terrain forms. Despite the willingness to adapt to the ideas of a responsible editor, some will succeed more than others, and thus one remains to a large extent dependent on the draughtsmen and their individual characteristics.”3 (Wagner 1888: vi)

For the Sydow-Wagner, the cartographer Valentin Geyer (1833–1909) played a particularly important role. Geyer was involved in producing a wide range of maps at Perthes and witnessed Europe’s cartographic penetration of the world from his drafting table. Correspondence between the publisher and Wagner shows that Geyer stayed in Göttingen during the summer of 1884 to work through the atlas’s maps together with Wagner. His knowledge of the subject lent him considerable authority. In a letter from May 1896, Bernhard Perthes made this explicit: if Wagner could not provide the draft for South Africa within the next few days, the description was to be entrusted to Geyer (Perthes 1896). This underscores that while Wagner was responsible for the drafts, Geyer was fully capable of taking over when needed.

Maps, therefore, are by no means purely objective representations of space. Rather, the cartographer’s individual perception and drawing practices significantly shaped the map, particularly in the depiction of terrain (Schelhaas/Wardenga 2011). Even with editorial guidelines from Wagner, the concrete design remained strongly influenced by cartographers like Geyer and their individual styles. Maps thus appear not merely as technical products but as the result of situated knowledge practices in which subjective experience, professional authority, and aesthetic decisions converge.

Mapping the German Colonial Empire: Africa in the Sydow-Wagner

What, then, does this mean for colonial borders on maps? It was not until the seventh edition of 1897, with the addition of map sheet 41a (fig. 2b), that the colonial territories of the German Empire in Africa were more clearly defined. Previously, students could only find the African continent on map 41 (fig. 2a) at a rather small scale of 1:40,000,000.

Fig. 2a: Hermann Wagner (ed.): Sydow-Wagners methodischer Schul-Atlas, 4th ed., Gotha 1891, sheet 41.
Gotha Research Library, Perthes Collection. Link
Fig 2b: Hermann Wagner (ed.): Sydow-Wagners methodischer Schul-Atlas, 7th ed., Gotha 1897, sheet 41a.
Gotha Research Library, Perthes Collection.

The Perthes Collection contains a folder that allows the atlas’s production process to be partially reconstructed (SPA ARCH FFA 305 Z). Among these materials is a working sheet for map 41 (fig. 3), which can be dated to the mid-1890s and shows a topographical depiction of the African continent. In the upper corners, hand-drawn maps of Cameroon (left) and the “Gold Coast” and “Slave Coast” (right) are pasted on. The lower corners were cut out, covered over, and supplemented—with the “Gold and Slave Coast” (left) and Cameroon (right). In the centre of the lower edge appears a profile cross-section of Tenerife.

Fig. 3: “Afrika” working sheet (map 41), from the production of the Sydow-Wagner, mid-1890s.
Gotha Research Library, Perthes Collection, SPA ARCH FFA 305 Z.

Through cutting, pasting, and adding pre-existing map fragments, the process of producing geographical knowledge becomes visible. This knowledge does not emerge all at once but through a layered process: new cartographic elements cover older representations, rendering previous knowledge partially invisible while bringing other aspects into focus.

Regarding colonies, this map sheet initially reveals one thing above all: it names them, e.g. German East Africa, French Equatorial Africa, or the Belgian Congo. At the same time, it makes them visually present, as “the colonial territories are marked with the colour of the motherland”4 (Wagner 1889: sheet 41, fig. 5). The colonies are thus visually linked to the European states depicted on earlier pages of the atlas: the British Empire appears in yellow, France in violet, Portugal in blue, and the German Empire in pink. However, comparing different editions reveals something striking: in the first edition of 1888, colonial designations are entirely absent (fig. 4). It was only in the second edition of 1889 that colonial borders began to appear, tentatively and in outline (fig. 5).

Fig 4: Hermann Wagner (ed.): Sydow-Wagners methodischer Schul-Atlas, Gotha 1888, sheet 41.
Gotha Research Library, Perthes Collection. Link
Fig. 5: Hermann Wagner (ed.): Sydow-Wagners methodischer Schul-Atlas, 2nd ed., Gotha 1889, sheet 41.
Gotha Research Library, Perthes Collection.

Rather, much suggests that the Sydow-Wagner addresses the “becoming” of the European colonies. It illustrates the political negotiation processes of the European colonial powers, as is particularly evident from the markings and colours along the eastern border of present-day Tanzania and Kenya (fig. 5). While the borders of German East Africa (pink markings) remained unclear inland, Germany still claimed a protectorate over the Sultanate of Witu (pink markings). Conflicts over border demarcations between the German Empire and the British Empire were resolved in 1890 – one year after the publication of the second edition – through the so-called Heligoland-Zanzibar Treaty. By the fourth edition in 1891, the borders of German East Africa had been clearly defined (fig. 2a).

The Sydow-Wagner thus appears less concerned with presenting colonial political ambitions or interests per se, and more focused on conveying the gradual formation of the colonies. It was aimed at providing durable geographical knowledge for schools. This focus on negotiations and border processes also made the atlas a tool of political education, as it enabled students to understand the complex dynamics of imperial politics, rather than merely presenting fixed structures of power.

With the seventh edition of 1897—when map 41 no longer highlights the “Cape Colony” and the “East African Lake Region” as supplementary maps but instead foregrounds the German colonies of Cameroon and Togo—an additional Africa map is introduced: map 41a, titled “Central and Southern Africa” (fig. 2b). At twice the scale (1:20,000,000), European colonies become more prominent. They are not only made more visible but are inscribed into the map through typographic emphasis. To enable students to compare the size of German colonial territories in Africa with the German Empire, the latter appears as a comparative inset at the bottom left corner of the map in the same scale.

Colonial Spaces after 1920: Persistence, Revision, and Visual Assertion in the Sydow-Wagner

This configuration persisted unchanged through, and including, the sixteenth edition of 1917. In the reprint of the sixteenth edition from 1920, which appeared “with consideration of the new borders”, the classification of what were now former German colonies disappeared from map sheet 41a. On map 41 (fig. 6), the overview of Africa, only the territory of former German East Africa is marked as a “former” (vormal.) colony, referring to the now defunct German possessions. Otherwise, in this first edition following the “loss of the colonies”, there is no trace of German colonial rule; the German pink had disappeared from the map.

Fig. 6: Hermann Wagner (ed.): Sydow-Wagners methodischer Schul-Atlas, 16th ed., Gotha 1920, sheet 41 (adapted by the author).
Gotha Research Library, Perthes Collection.

This restraint was surrendered in the seventeenth edition (1923, fig. 7): in red spaced lettering and with red borders, references to the former German colonies were now made visibly present. The factual transfer of power after 1920 is acknowledged through the newly adjusted borders shown in updated colours; at the same time, however, the former German names and boundary lines are superimposed onto the underlying cartography in thin red marks—an addition that has no counterpart in the legend. The nature of these overlays likewise points to a subtle form of asserting claims to the now “lost” territories, while the Weimar Republic continues to serve as a comparative reference point in the lower left corner of the map.

Whether this striking emphasis was explicitly introduced by Wagner or by the publisher cannot be determined with certainty. Given the production process of earlier editions, however, it is likely that Wagner at least approved such a representation.

Fig 7: Hermann Wagner (ed.): Sydow-Wagners methodischer Schul-Atlas, 17th ed., Gotha 1923, sheet 41a.
Gotha Research Library, Perthes Collection. Link

The continued presence of former German colonies in the atlas raises an open question: it may be interpreted as an expression of colonial revisionism in the interwar period (Schilling 2014: 32–40). Alternatively, it may have served primarily to remind readers of Germany’s former “place in the sun”. Which interpretation prevailed in the classroom likely depended on how the atlas was used in practise.

A closer look at the Sydow-Wagner shows that school maps did not simply depict colonial realities. Rather, they were part of a long-term process of knowledge production. The maps emerged through collaboration between editors, cartographers, and publishers, and through constant revision, correction, and adaptation. The map used in classrooms was thus not a static result but the product of a complex process in which existing knowledge was collected, reorganized, and visually translated.

This process is particularly evident in the representation of colonial spaces. German colonies appear only hesitantly at first—in open boundary lines or incomplete contours. Only in later editions they become more pronounced, through additional maps, larger scales, or typographic emphasis. The atlas thus responded less directly to political events than it contributed to stabilizing and transmitting a longer-term body of geographical knowledge for educational purposes.

After the end of the German colonial empire and the First World War, the colonies initially disappeared from the map (Wagner 1920: pl. 41), but they reappeared in the next edition of 1923, albeit in altered form. References to “former” colonies or their conspicuous marking in later editions indicate that colonial spaces continued to be part of geographical knowledge in schools. The atlas thus functioned not only as a teaching tool but also as a medium that preserved and made visible colonial references across political ruptures.

In this sense, the Sydow-Wagner demonstrates that colonial borders on school maps were neither self-evident nor stable. The folder containing drafts for map 41 in the Perthes Collection illustrates this particularly vividly. Pasted-over map sections, cut-out areas, and handwritten additions reveal how maps were constructed layer by layer. These material traces of cartographic work make it clear that geographical knowledge was not simply adopted but continually reassembled. The Sydow-Wagner was thus not only a school atlas but also a site where colonial spaces were gradually inscribed into the geographical worldview of students.

References

Anonymous (ed.): Das Antlitz der Erde. Bibliothek von Prof. Dr. Hermann Wagner, vol. 1–3, Leipzig 1930.

Denecke, Dietrich: Hermann Wagner. Geograph – Rede anläßlich der Enthüllung einer Gedenktafel, 2. November 2005, in: Göttinger Jahrbuch 53 (2005), pp. 165–174.

Brogiato, Heinz Peter: “An dem Knochen wird von vielen genagt”. Zur Entwicklung der geographischen Schulatlanten im 19. Jahrhundert, in: Internationale Schulbuchforschung 19.1 (1997), pp. 35–66.

Erneuerung von Sydow’s Schul-Atlas in größerem Format [1879], in: Gotha Research Library, Perthes Collection, SPA ARCH MFV 305/01, fol. 67.

Henniges, Norman, Philipp Julius Meyer: “Das Gesamtbild des Vaterlandes stets vor Augen”. Hermann Haack und die Gothaer Schulkartographie vom Wilhelminischen Kaiserreich bis zum Ende des Nationalsozialismus, in: Zeitschrift für Geographiedidaktik 44.4 (2016), pp. 37–60.

Perthes, Bernhard to Hermann Wagner, 28 November 1881, Gotha Research Library, Perthes Collection, SPA ARCH MFV 305/01, fol. 166.

Perthes, Bernhard to Hermann Wagner, 4 May 1896, Gotha Research Library, Perthes Collection, SPA ARCH MFV 305/07, fol. 1109.

Prauß, Charlotte: Wagner, Hermann, in: NDB-online 2025, URL: https://www.deutsche-biographie.de/gnd119034611.html#dbocontent (Accessed: 17.03.2026).

Schelhaas, Bruno, Ute Wardenga: “Inzwischen spricht die Karte für sich Selbst”. Transformation von Wissen im Prozess der Kartenproduktion, in: Steffen Siegel, Petra Weigel (eds.): Die Werkstatt des Kartographen. Materialien und Praktiken visueller Welterzeugung, Munich 2011, pp. 89–108.

Schilling, Britta: Postcolonial Germany. Memories of Empire in a Decolonized Nation, Oxford 2014.

Schramm, Manuel: Der “Sydow“. Zur Geschichte eines Schulatlas im 19. Jahrhundert, in: Archiv für Kulturgeschichte 97.1 (2015), pp. 153–175.

Verein für Erdkunde in Kassel (ed.): Die Anforderungen der Schule an Landkarten, 2nd ed., Braunschweig 1885.

Wagner, Hermann: Der gegenwärtige Standpunkt der Methodik der Erdkunde, in: Geographische Zeitschrift 7 (1878), pp. 550–636.

Id. (ed.): Sydow-Wagners methodischer Schul-Atlas, Gotha 1888.

Id. (ed.): Sydow-Wagners methodischer Schul-Atlas, 2nd ed., Gotha 1889.

Id. (ed.): Sydow-Wagners methodischer Schul-Atlas, 4th ed., Gotha 1891.

Id. (ed.): Sydow-Wagners methodischer Schul-Atlas, 7th ed., Gotha 1897.

Id. (ed.): Sydow-Wagners methodischer Schul-Atlas, 8th ed., Gotha 1899.

Id.: Der Geographische Universitätsunterricht in Göttingen, in: Geographische Zeitschrift 25.1 (1919), pp. 1–20.

Id. (ed.): Sydow-Wagners methodischer Schul-Atlas, 16th ed., Gotha 1920.

Id. (ed.): Sydow-Wagners methodischer Schul-Atlas, 17th ed., Gotha 1923.

Id.: Göttinger Professoren. Lebensbilder von eigener Hand, in: Universitätsbund Göttingen. Mitteilungen 5.2 (1924), pp. 1–37.

Weigel, Petra: Die Sammlung Perthes Gotha, Gotha 2011.

Id.: Geographische Wissensproduktion. Reflexionen aus der Perspektive der geographie- und kartographiehistorischen Sammlung Perthes der Forschungsbibliothek Gotha, in: Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte 40 (2017), pp. 86–90.

Zantop, Susan, Sara Friedrichsmeyer, Sara Lennox (eds.): The Imperialist Imagination. German Colonialism and Its Legacy, Ann Abor 1998.

  1. „Es ist genau vierzig Jahre her, dass Emil von Sydow († 1873) mit seinem Schulatlas hervortrat, einem für die damalige Zeit epochenmachenden Werke […]. […] [D]ie beiden seinen Namen tragenden Atlanten waren aber längst so sehr veraltet, dass sie den Anforderungen einer neu erwachten Periode des geographischen Studiums und Unterrichts nicht mehr genügen konnten. Es musste Neues an ihre Stelle treten.“ []
  2. „Schriften allgemeineren Inhalts, insbesondere über die geographische Methodik und den geographischen Unterricht“. []
  3. „Es ist eine noch viel zu wenig allgemein bekannte Thatsache, dass je höher der Karthograph steht, er um so mehr individuelle Anschauung in den Kartenbildern, besonders bei den Terrainformen, zur Darstellung bringt. Trotz guten Willens, sich den Ideen eines verantwortlichen Herausgebers anzupassen, wird dies dem einen mehr, dem anderen weniger gelingen, und somit bleibt man zu einem sehr grossen Teil bei Kartenproduktionen von seinen Zeichnern und deren Eigenheiten abhängig.“ []
  4. „Die Kolonialgebiete sind mit der Farbe des Mutterlandes bezeichnet“. []
Charlotte Prauß
Charlotte Prauß

OpenEdition suggests that you cite this post as follows:
Charlotte Prauß (April 19, 2026). Colonial Borders on School Maps. Sydow-Wagner’s Methodical School Atlas, 1878–1928. Mapping Africa and Asia. Retrieved May 21, 2026 from https://doi.org/10.58079/163ft


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