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✅Nautical Cartography of the Azores

Nautical charts are indispensable tools for maritime navigation as they represent the contours of the coast, islands, depths, and other elements of interest to navigators.

One of the earliest cartographic representations of the Azores islands is found in a collection of documents compiled in a codex by Valentim Fernandes, a German printer based in Lisbon, known as The Valentim Fernandes Manuscript.

This codex, dated 1507, belongs to the Munich Library and includes a text dedicated to the “islands of the ocean sea,” which discusses the Azores islands.

“The Azores islands are as follows [...].

In the year 1443, Prince Henry sent two caravels westward to see if they could find mainland or not. At a distance of 270 leagues from Lisbon, they found an uninhabited island, which is now called Santa Maria, with many hawks. They saw another and went to it, now called São Miguel, also uninhabited and full of hawks, as well as Terceira and all the others, all with many hawks, hence these islands were named the Azores.

All are populated at present in 1507, except for the islands of Corvo and Flores.”

The Valentim Fernandes Manuscript also includes another text entitled “Of the islands of the ocean sea”, which features maps of the Atlantic islands, including the nine Azorean islands.

The significance of these maps is mainly historical, as they represent the first depiction of each of the nine Azorean islands. They are labeled in Portuguese, and their proportion and orientation show some conformity.

However, the Azorean archipelago only regained cartographic representation much later, as it became an “essential” stopover for navigation crossing the Atlantic. Consequently, major European cartographic centers began producing nautical charts of the Azorean islands.

In the major centers of printed cartographic production, located in Flanders and the Netherlands, activity was intense and production abundant.

The famous Flemish cartographer Abraham Ortelius published a map in Antwerp based on the information of Portuguese cartographer Luís Teixeira. This map was included in the 1584 edition of his atlas Theatrum Orbis Terrarum and is still widely used today to illustrate texts about the Azores.

Another atlas by Williem Janzoon Blaeu, entitled Het licht der zee-vaert, published in Amsterdam in 1608, included engravings with profile views of the islands of Terceira, Graciosa, and São Jorge, calling them Vlaemsche Eylanden (Flemish Islands). It also included a map of the Madeira archipelago with insets or plans of Azorean ports such as Angra, São Miguel, and Faial. These insets featured numerical symbols representing some depths or soundings, marking the first instance of such features in Azorean nautical cartography.

Another map from the "Dutch school," titled Nieuwe Pascaert van alle de Vlaemse Eylanden, was published in Amsterdam in 1680 by Johannus van Keulen. This map depicted the entire Azorean archipelago and included insets of its three main ports. However, in the 1682 edition, van Keulen included a tenth Azorean island between São Miguel and Terceira, resulting from a previously mentioned submarine eruption.

Among the many maps produced of the Azorean archipelago, this is the only one to depict the mentioned tenth island, giving it great historical value.

After Dutch cartography, it was French cartography that advanced the most. The Azorean archipelago and its islands often appeared as Isles Terçeres, with nautical charts signed by notable cartographers such as Pierre du Val (1676), Jacques-Nicolas Bellin (1764), and Jean-Baptiste d'Après de Mannevillette (1775).

In English cartography, the Azorean archipelago was represented by Richard Mount & Thomas Page (1729) and later by Robert Laurie & James Whittle (1797). While the former referred to the islands as The Western Isles, the latter identified them as Azores (Hawks) Islands, also called Flemish and Western Islands.

The Spanish also charted the Azorean islands, notably with maps published by Don Tomás y Don Juan López (1781) and Vicente Tofiño de San Miguel (1788), both titled Islas de los Azores ó Terceras.

However, all these charts presented significant distortions, as the solution to determining longitude had not yet been found. Additionally, they were primarily based on information gathered by pilots, which, even when inaccurate, was often repeated across maps as information sharing had become common practice in cartographic production.

The nautical cartography of the Azores only began to take scientific form after the hydrographic campaign launched in 1841 by Commander Alexander Vidal aboard HMS Styx. This campaign led to the publication of seven hydrographic charts by the British Admiralty's Hydrographic Office.

Approximately a century later, the Mission for Hydrographic Surveying of Adjacent Islands began a comprehensive hydrographic survey of the oceanic and port areas of the Azores. From 1960 onward, this work was continued by the Hydrographic Institute.

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