German travelers in the Province of Tripoli between political geography and geographical knowledge

Abstract

The Province of Tripoli received many European travelers since the seventeenth century; however, the arrival of the German travelers to the province started before the mid-nineteenth century. The German travelers visited Tripoli either as part of missions commissioned by some European governments, as is the case of the traveler Heinrich Barth who was commissioned by the British government or commissioned by King Prussian Wilhelm I or with the support of Berlin Geographical Society, such as the traveler Gerhard Rohlfs.he European competition to gain a new foothold in Africa was also behind the efforts to send those travelers with experience and knowledge of the exploration processes and knowledge of the routes and helping means that would enable them to cope with the nature of these areas.In this context of the European competition, this study deals with the following questions: How did the German travelers manage to merge between political geography and geographical knowledge?how was this European competition directed? To what extent was the European competition linked to politics?as for the goals of the travelers, there are several questions to be dealt with in this study, for example, were their goals of a colonial and political nature and were the goals set by the ruling authority? Or were the goals of a scientific nature to gather geographical information?this paper will rely on a number of sources of data and references