Until the last quarter of the 19th century, the Congo-Zaire basin was unknown in Europe. The map made in 1866 by the Genevan geographer Paul Chaix (1808-1901) shows Central Africa in its exploration phase. On it can be seen the Zambezi River and its tributaries, thanks too to the missionary David Livingstone (1803-1873) cited under the title. Congo-Zaire is barely represented. It would only be mapped a decade later by Henry Stanley (1841-1904) and exploited by the King of the Belgians, Leopold II (1835-1909), with the complicity of the Geography Society of Geneva. F. Rossinelli