ignorance about the African continent has led to some enormous errors in mapmaking. One of the errors now seems quite incredible. In the late eighteenth century, a European explorer reported seeing mountains in southern Mali. From that report, a mapmaker drew in a long line of mountains. As a result, these"Kong Mountains," as he called them, were drawn on almost all maps of Africa in the nineteenth century. They seemed to be an important feature of the continental in the geography. European politicians and traders made decisions based on their belief that existence of these mountains. Finally, in the late 1880s, a French explorer proved there were no mountains in that part of Africa. Following that discovery, the"Kong Mountains" disappeared from maps of Africa.