North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Florida in 1850 - Charlotte, Charleston, Savannah, St. Augustine

Joseph Meyer published this detailed German-language map of the southeastern United States in 1850, issued from Hildburghausen for his Zeitungs-Atlas, an ambitious and widely circulated reference atlas produced by the Bibliographisches Institut. Meyer had built his publishing empire on the strength of his encyclopedia and his acclaimed Meyers Universum, and under his direction the firm became renowned for high-quality steel engravings that brought detailed geographic and scientific information to a broad European readership. This sheet encompasses North and South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, extending westward into portions of Alabama and Tennessee, and displays the dense, precise hachuring and fine typography characteristic of German cartography of the era.

An intricate network of counties, roads, settlements, and river systems fills the main map, with Florida shown in its early antebellum county configuration and the Appalachian ranges and coastal plains rendered with meticulous topographic hachuring throughout the region. The sheet's most historically compelling feature is its Gold-Region von Nord-Carolina inset, mapping the area around Charlotte in Mecklenburg and Cabarrus counties, the epicenter of the first major gold rush in the United States following the 1799 discovery at the Reed farm, a district that remained the nation's primary gold source until the 1849 California strikes. Three further insets provide detailed plans of St. Augustine's harbor with its bathymetric soundings, New Bern at the confluence of the Neuse and Trent rivers, and Charleston with its surrounding islands and river approaches.

This map is a distinctive gift for a family with roots anywhere across the Carolinas, Georgia, or Florida, for a transplant now settled in Charlotte or Charleston, or for a collector of German-published maps of America. It is offered unframed in a range of sizes.