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Imperial Perspectives on Papua New Guinea: Paul Langhans’s Map of the Gazelle Peninsula (1893)

Between 1893 and 1897, the cartographer Paul Langhans (1867–1952), one of the leading figures at the Justus Perthes publishing house, produced an ambitious colonial atlas. As he proudly noted in the title, it contained 30 main maps and 300 side maps (Langhans 1897). The Deutscher Kolonial-Atlas was published in fifteen instalments, each costing 1.60 Mark. However, as historian Philip Julius Meyer notes, the complexity of the maps published were far from meeting the economic expectations of the author (Meyer 2019: 100–102). Beyond its economic failure, the atlas served another purpose. It was used by Langhans, a fervent advocator of German colonialism, as a means of propaganda. Langhans sought to direct German colonial interests towards “plantation and trading colonies” for the commercial exploitation of foreign lands (ibid.: 89). This vision can be examined in the cartographic choices he made, where place names and seemingly objective topographic information are used to highlight the success of economic exploitation in the colonies. Langhans’s maps were not mere projections of the world. Quite the contrary, they functioned as instruments of colonial knowledge, which supported projects of German colonial expansion at the end of the 19th century (Schröder 2025).

This blog post provides a critical analysis of Langhans’s imperial perspective for German New Guinea by analysing one of the main maps and several accompanying side maps of the atlas representing the Gazelle Peninsula, a region located at the north-east of Papua New Guinea, on the northern tip of the New Britain island. Between 1884 and 1919, this region was part of German New Guinea, a colony first ruled by a chartered company called the New Guinea Company (Neuguinea-Compagnie, NGC), and then under direct administrative rule from 1899 onwards. A key objective of this company was the development of a plantation-based economy, focused on the exploitation of coconut and cotton.

This analysis studies cartographic sketches to better situate Langhans’s Kolonial-Atlas within its broader historical context. It thus intends to historicise its imperial representation of the Gazelle Peninsula. This contribution draws on a small proportion of the rich material provided by the Perthes Collection in Gotha. The collection pertaining to Papua New Guinea contains 1,009 maps, including 642 land maps, 367 sea maps and 30 additional large maps of New Guinea, going from 1771 to 1986. The vast majority of these maps remain understudied, providing significant opportunities for future researchers (cf. Govor 2025).

The Justus Perthes Publishing House and Early Imperial Representations of the New Guinea Island

The north-east of New Guinea was annexed by the NGC on 6 November 1884 with the raising of a flag on Matupit Island (East New Britain). It was later taken over by the German Empire on 1 April 1899, a time when the company could not sustain the costs of administration (Gründer 2022: 102). Still, these official dates should not obscure the fact that German colonial interests for the New Guinea Island had developed decades earlier.

From the 1870s onwards, German actors could be found to be involved in trading and missionary activities. The company Hernsheim & Co. founded its first coconut trading station in 1875, while missionaries of the Rheinische Missionsgesellschaft sent their first delegates to Bogadjim (Madang), a village situated on the north-eastern coast of New Guinea, in 1887. Prior to these dates, colonial lobbies played a significant role in promoting the economic exploitation of the island and its surrounding archipelagos. As early as 1869, Perthes’ influential geographer August Petermann (1822–1878) published a map accompanied by a long report on New Guinea, in which he argued for the colonisation of the eastern half of the island. While the western half had already been incorporated into the Dutch East Indies in 1828, he argued that the other half of the island offered potential for numerous prosperous economic activities. Furthermore, he claimed that a German colonial presence could safeguard other German trading interests in the South Pacific. Relying on letters received by a German trader in Queensland (Australia), he stated that British competition in the area should encourage the Prussian government to take actions to secure a foothold on this island situated at the junction between Indian, Asian and Pacific trading routes (Petermann 1869). To make his point even more visible, he published a map of New Guinea and the surrounding archipelagos, which represented the island as a blank space left to be colonised (fig. 1).

Fig. 1: Heinrich Berghaus: Neu-Guinea und benachbarte Inseln.
Petermanns Geographische Mitteilungen 15 (1869), pl. 20. Link↗

Evidence of early colonial interest in the New Guinea Island can also be found in Petermann’s correspondence with the Russo-Ukrainian traveller Nikolai Miklouho-Maclay who conducted extensive fieldwork in the Astrolabe Bay in 1871 and 1872 and participated in an exploratory expedition of the southern coast of the Dutch colony (Govor 2025: 18–24). In his letters, Maclay pinpointed several locations for the German cartographer, such as the estimated location of the foothills of “King William” mountain.1 He also supplied Petermann with a detailed account of his stay in the Astrolabe Bay and the expeditions he took part in on the southern coast of the island (Miklouho-Maclay 1874). Notably, Maclay sent Petermann a sketch (fig. 2) of the south-western coast of New Guinea in 1874, including names of villages and bays provided by local New Guinean people and foreign traders, which he placed on the map. As historian Helena Govor argues, however, this map is a representation of Maclay’s own cartographic choices rather than an objective display of indigenous knowledge, as the author often presented his own understanding of otherwise mobile indigenous settlements (Govor 2025: 33–35).

Fig. 2: Nikolai Miklouho-Maclay: Kartenskizzen von Papua-Kowiay (1874).
Gotha Research Library, Perthes Collection, SPK-70.13.a B(01). Link↗

By the late 19th century, this practise of naming places increased on Pacific maps to show imperial interest in specific islands or regions. Mapmakers hence sought to rename Pacific Islands in order to claim legitimacy on them (Blais 2001: 348f.). European maps sometimes comprised a mixture of local Papuan names, as the Kumawa mountains, still named as such in Irian Jaya (Western New Guinea) and displayed on Maclay’s map, and European projections on spaces of which they knew little of, illustrating attempts to organise colonial settlements (fig. 2). Early imperial representations thus both comprised European projections and indigenous names, which were still part of a mapping process which removed them from their initial meanings within local communities.

Paul Langhans’s Representation of the Gazelle Peninsula

From the 1880s onwards, imperial maps increasingly came to represent European settlements in areas which seemed suitable for plantation agriculture or colonial settlements, rather than the rest of the territory which remained vastly unknown to Europeans. This perspective is notably apparent on Langhans’s maps of the Gazelle Peninsula, which came to be linked to growing plantation schemes developed by the NGC and other individual entrepreneurs (Panoff 1979).

On a 1887 map of New Britain published by the German planter Richard Parkinson (1844–1909), the Gazelle Peninsula is represented with a mixture of European and indigenous names (Parkinson 1887: 151). In this sense, the Duke of York Islands, named by Philip Carteret in 1767, were transformed into Neu-Lauenburg upon German annexation. This map also displayed the slow start of the plantation economy in the Gazelle Peninsula through mentioning indigenous names of villages or islands situated near European settlements. Hence, locations such as “Matupi” or “Kabakaul” are indicative of European trading stations at a time when coconuts sold by local Tolai villagers remained the main way to furnish European traders (Hempenstall 1978).2 When this map arrived in Gotha in 1887, Langhans cross-referenced the measurements and locations with other reports and maps, before incorporating it in his atlas. This can be seen by the inscriptions with the red pen, which can also be found in other maps he used (fig. 3).

Fig. 3: Langhans’s edits on Parkinson’s map of the Gazelle Peninsula.
Gotha Research Library, Perthes Collection, SPK 70.13.B A-05.
For the original map cf. Parkinson, Richard: Im Bismarck-Archipel, Leipzig 1887.

A notable example of this method of cross-referencing maps from East New Britain can be seen on a second map of the Gazelle Peninsula, sketched by the company land measurer Paul Schneider in 1887 (fig. 4). On the one hand, Langhans used Schneider’s map to correct some information he found missing in Parkinson’s map, and he also added place names where they were missing (such as Cape Stephens on Parkinson’s map). Finally, he used Schneider’s map to relocate some islands on Parkinson’s map (e.g. Uatam). Parkinson’s map, on the other hand, was used to add topographic information missing in Schneider’s sketch, apparent through mentions such as “densely wooded” (dicht bewaldet) on the west of the peninsula. In all, it seems that Langhans rather trusted the measurements made by Schneider while including some of Parkinson’s topographic information.

Fig. 4: Langhans’s edits on Schneider’s map of the Gazelle Peninsula.
Gotha Research Library, Perthes Collection, SPK 70.13.B C-02.
For the originial map cf. Gazelle Halbinsel (Nordöstlicher Theil von Neu-Pommern) und Neu-Lauenburg. Vermessung durch den vereidigten Feldmesser P. Schneider, im Auftrage der Neu-Guinea Kompagnie, 1887, 1:100.000.

A telling result of Langhans’s cross-referencing of both maps can be found in the map of the Bismarck Archipelago in his atlas (fig. 5). It is the second of six maps in the atlas devoted to New Guinea and includes the islands of New Britain, New Ireland, Buka, and Bougainville, bearing the general title of the “Protectorate of the New Guinea Company”.3 In addition to the main map, the plate contains twelve smaller side maps which provide more detailed views of specific localities under influence of European planters, missionaries, and colonial administrators. Four of them, situated at the top right of the main map, provide readers with a detailed overview of the Gazelle Peninsula, its coast and adjacent islands (fig. 6).

Fig. 5: The Bismarck Archipelago as depicted by Paul Langhans in 1893.
Paul Langhans: Schutzgebiet der Neu-Guinea-Kompanie in 6 Blättern, Blatt 2, in: id.: Deutscher Kolonial-Atlas. 30 Karten mit vielen Hundert Nebenkarten, Gotha 1892, pl. 25. Link↗
Fig. 6: Four of the side maps of Langhans’s map of the Bismarck Archipelago.
Paul Langhans: Schutzgebiet der Neu-Guinea-Kompanie in 6 Blättern, Blatt 2, in: id.: Deutscher Kolonial-Atlas. 30 Karten mit vielen Hundert Nebenkarten, Gotha 1892, pl. 25.

This map derives from the corrections implemented by Langhans on both of the previous maps by Parkinson and Schneider. It comprises an exact replica of Schneider’s sketch of Matupit Island, in which Langhans merely added a few palm trees. It also provides a sketch of the Duke of York Islands, which seems to have been cut out of Schneider’s map. This leaves open the possibility that Langhans simply copied and pasted the map. But it also bears a number of place names, pertaining both to the indigenous and European terminologies used by Parkinson. In selecting indigenous names of villages and places on Parkinson’s map, he provides a “zoom in” of Parkinson’s map, as if to focus on actual colonial settlements and plantations rather than on explorations to come. To make sense of the merger of both maps, Langhans also added a legend, specifying that he colour-coded German trading stations to distinguish them from other colonial settlements in the region, underlining them with a pink line, rendering his economic perspective of the north of New Britain even clearer.

By providing detailed side maps of the Gazelle Peninsula, it seems that the cartographer draws our attention to the endless possibilities brought forward by German colonialism on the island. Rather than focusing on indigenous villages or blank areas still unknown to Europeans, Langhans designed the expansion of colonial settlements, before it had even started on the ground, offering to the reader his own view on what the colony should look like. By highlighting these areas, Langhans emphasised the pursuit of colonial settlement and economic extractivism in the regions of New Britain where German colonial expansion had started.

Langhans’s cartographic practise, however, was far from representing exactly the colonial process on the Gazelle Peninsula at the end of the 19th century. Described as an expanding process, the NGC’s construction of a plantation economy led to numerous instances of revolt and resistance by the Tolai coastal villages. In 1893, Tolai Big Men formed a coalition to drive the European presence out of the island, leading to a six-month war between Tolai villages and European-led plantation labourers (Neumann 1992: 127–140). Furthermore, the plantation economy in German New Guinea led to very little economic output throughout the German colonial period, despite the repressive measures of labour recruitment led by the NGC and the German colonial administration afterwards (Panoff 1979).

Conclusion

This brief analysis offered an insight into Langhans’s imperial vision for the Gazelle Peninsula. Through sketches, it is possible to see how colonial knowledge was built on imitation and adjustments of previously published maps which were adapted by Langhans in Gotha. Although filled with information, Langhans decidedly chose to underscore the areas in which he thought that economic development could prosper in German New Guinea, giving a “zoom-in” effect on two existing imperial maps of the Gazelle Peninsula. In his atlas, the names of European settlements and indigenous villages seem to be used to display present and future perspectives for the development of trading stations and plantation lands, referring to an extractivist vision of imperialism, which Langhans not only stressed for German New Guinea, but also for a majority of extra-European regions comprising German settlements such as the coastal areas of South America (Langhans 1897: pl. 9). The cartographic method he implemented, though being itself a financial failure in the end, remained at the core of an imperial project designed to highlight a German imperialist presence throughout the globe.

References

Blais, Hélène: Comment trouver le “meilleur nom géographique”? Les voyageurs français et la question de la dénomination des îles océaniennes au XIXe siècle, in: L’Espace Géographique 30 (2001), pp. 348–357.

Govor, Elena: Ethnographic and Imperial Mapping: Miklouho-Maclay’s New Guinea Placenames, in: The Journal of Pacific History (2025), pp. 1–37.

Gründer, Horst: Geschichte der deutschen Kolonien, 3rd ed., Paderborn 2022 (1st ed. 2018).

Hempenstall, Peter: Pacific Islanders Under German Rule. A Study in the Meaning of Colonial Resistance, Canberra 1978.

Langhans, Paul: Deutscher Kolonial-Atlas. 30 Karten mit vielen Hundert Nebenkarten, Gotha 1897.

Meyer, Philipp Julius: Kartographie und Weltanschauung. Visuelle Wissensproduktion im Verlag Justus Perthes, 1890–1945, Göttingen 2019.

Miklouho-Maclay, Nikolai to August Petermann, 27 March 1874, Gotha Research Library, Perthes Collection, SPA ARCH PGM 098, fol. 17–28.

Neumann, Klaus: Not the Way It Really Was. Constructing the Tolai Past, Honululu 1992.

Panoff, Michel: Travailleurs, recruteurs et planteurs dans l’Archipel Bismarck de 1885 à 1914, in: Journal de la Société des Océanistes 64 (1979), pp. 159–173.

Parkinson, Richard: Im Bismarck-Archipel, Leipzig 1887.

Petermann, August: Neu-Guinea: Deutsche Rufe von den Antipoden, in: Petermanns Geographische Mittheilungen 15 (1869), pp. 401–406.

Schröder, Iris: Wissen dekolonisieren. Die Sammlung Perthes Gotha, in: Sahra Rausch, Christiane Bürger (eds.): Koloniales Erbe in Thüringen, Berlin 2025, pp. 41–49.

  1. Maclay probably refers to Mount Wilhelm, which is the highest mountain in Papua New Guinea (4,509 meters in altitude). ↩︎
  2. It should be noted that these names are spelled incorrectly according to today’s orthography (“Matupit”, “Kabakaul”). ↩︎
  3. “Schutzgebiet der Neu-Guinea-Kompanie”. ↩︎
Tobias Wagemann
Tobias Wagemann
Tobias Wagemann is a PhD candidate at the École normale supérieure – PSL since October 2022. He is affiliated with… Read more

OpenEdition suggests that you cite this post as follows:
Tobias Wagemann (May 23, 2026). Imperial Perspectives on Papua New Guinea: Paul Langhans’s Map of the Gazelle Peninsula (1893). Mapping Africa and Asia. Retrieved June 6, 2026 from https://doi.org/10.58079/16a6b


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