Primeros levantamientos cartográficos generales de Chile con base científica: los mapas de Claudio Gay y Amado Pissis

Abstract

The government authorities, from the beginning of the republican life of the Chilean nation, tried to resolve the lack of general cartography of the country with a certain level of accuracy. This would allow them to get to know its form, extension, location of the population; as well as the location of its natural resources. This context also explains the hiring in 1830 of the French naturalist Claudio Gay and later, in 1848, of the French geologist and geographer Amado Pissis, in order to substitute such problems so for both to make a cartographic survey of the national territory. The work done by Gay and Pissis, are here analyzed from the cartographic point of view; first of all to know the procedures followed by the elaborations as well as the results obtained, and secondly to comply with the requirements asked by the government authorities, based on the contracts signed by both of them.