“Zambia, Malawi, Rodezja. Afryka Wschodnia - Krajobrazy” is a striking 1962 statement by Teodor Naumienko, issued by Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe in Warsaw for the first edition of the Polish World Atlas. Formed in the disciplined tradition of Poland’s Army Topographical Service, Naumienko’s hand marries military-grade accuracy with the lucid elegance of mid-century cartography. The sheet captures a liminal moment in Southern and East Africa, when political geographies were crystallizing even as colonial nomenclatures lingered. Boundaries, cities, and networks are rendered with cool, confident clarity, yet the map remains fundamentally about landscape—its relief, drainage, and climatic belts. Political and physical narratives interlock, showing how frontiers ride watersheds, how roads follow passes, and how settlement and cultivation answer, with quiet logic, to terrain.

With assured linework and a carefully tiered labeling hierarchy, the political framework of Zambia, Malawi, and Rhodesia is set out alongside a living web of connectivity. Lusaka, Lilongwe, and Harare anchor the region, their prominence keyed to a network of arterial roads and railway lines that stitch plateau to valley and highveld to riverside plain. Thematic annotations extend the frame beyond land routes: shipping tracks and measured distances trace skeins to the Indian Ocean littoral, cueing the reader to regional trade geographies. A refined symbol set distinguishes forests from agricultural land, with subtle variations in weight and tint guiding the eye from national outlines to the smallest market town.

Elevation is the language of this map—and it speaks fluently. Gradient tints step through altitude bands with painterly restraint, while crisp isolines give the terrain tactile definition. The Muchinga escarpments rise in orderly strata above the Zambezi trough; the Nyika and Shire Highlands are expressed as luminous plateaus; and the Zimbabwean Eastern Highlands appear as a cool, serrated spine. This hypsometric design is not decorative excess: it explains roads that kink to meet passes, railways that contour along gentler grades, and districts where forest cover yields to fields and plantations. The result is an atlas page that lets relief, land use, and infrastructure read as parts of a single, intelligible system.

Hydrography is mapped with equal finesse. The Zambezi and Shire rivers are articulated as muscular, branching systems, their floodplains and tributaries laid out with hydrological logic. Bathymetric tints bring water bodies into the same dimensional register as land: layered blues descend into the trench-like depths of Lake Malawi, while calibrated shading suggests changing profiles along major channels. Taken together with route distances plotted across the wider East African maritime sphere, the water treatment frames inland Southern Africa as inseparable from littoral movement and exchange. What could have been a static inland plate becomes, instead, a geography of flow—of cargo, rainfall, silt, and people—rendered with scientific restraint.

A thematic inset on the volcanic regions of East Africa widens the lens, situating the southern plateaux within the grand tectonic theater of the Rift. Here, a tighter scale and analytical color sequence pick out volcanic fields and axial highs, with Nairobi appearing as a metropolitan waypoint along this geologic corridor. The inset is not merely illustrative; it is interpretive, hinting at how rift architecture governs gradients, river capture, soils, and ultimately the agricultural patterns symbolized on the main sheet. As part of the inaugural Polish World Atlas, the map embodies a distinctly Warsaw vantage on Africa in the early 1960s—precise, modern, and quietly prescient about the political and environmental structures that would define the region for decades.

Countries and regions on this map

• Zambia
• Malawi
• Rhodesia (Zimbabwe)
• East Africa
• Southern Africa
• Nairobi (as part of an inset map)

Notable Features & Landmarks

• Political boundaries between Zambia, Malawi, and Rhodesia
• Major rivers, including the Zambezi and Shire
• Road networks and railway lines connecting key cities
• City labels including Lusaka, Lilongwe, and Harare
• Mountain ranges and notable elevated terrains
• Gradients used to depict elevation changes
• An inset map detailing volcanic regions of East Africa
• Bathymetric data showing depths of lakes and rivers
• Symbols indicating forests and agricultural land

Historical and design context

• Date Created: 1962
• Mapmaker/Publisher: Teodor Naumienko; published by Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe in Warsaw
• Naumienko was involved with the Polish Army Topographical Service, indicating accuracy and military intention
• Detailed color maps employing gradient tints and isolines
• Bathymetric tints for depth representation
• Inclusion of both political and physical maps
• Thematic elements such as shipping routes and distances
• Unique post and screw binding enhances accessibility
• Part of the first edition of the Polish World Atlas
• Reflects post-colonial geography of East Africa with political boundaries and significant topographic features

Please double check the images to make sure that a specific town or place is shown on this map. You can also get in touch and ask us to check the map for you.

This map looks great at every size, but I always recommend going for a larger size if you have space. That way you can easily make out all of the details.

This map looks amazing at sizes all the way up to 70in (180cm). If you are looking for a larger map, please get in touch.

The model in the listing images is holding the 18x24in (45x60cm) version of this map.

The fifth listing image shows an example of my map personalisation service.

If you’re looking for something slightly different, check out my collection of the best old maps to see if something else catches your eye.

Please contact me to check if a certain location, landmark or feature is shown on this map.

This would make a wonderful birthday, Christmas, Father's Day, work leaving, anniversary or housewarming gift for someone from the areas covered by this map.

This map is available as a giclée print on acid free archival matte paper, or you can buy it framed. The frame is a nice, simple black frame that suits most aesthetics. Please get in touch if you'd like a different frame colour or material. My frames are glazed with super-clear museum-grade acrylic (perspex/acrylite), which is significantly less reflective than glass, safer, and will always arrive in perfect condition.

This map is also available as a float framed canvas, sometimes known as a shadow gap framed canvas or canvas floater. The map is printed on artist's cotton canvas and then stretched over a handmade box frame. We then "float" the canvas inside a wooden frame, which is available in a range of colours (black, dark brown, oak, antique gold and white). This is a wonderful way to present a map without glazing in front. See some examples of float framed canvas maps and explore the differences between my different finishes.

For something truly unique, this map is also available in "Unique 3D", our trademarked process that dramatically transforms the map so that it has a wonderful sense of depth. We combine the original map with detailed topography and elevation data, so that mountains and the terrain really "pop". For more info and examples of 3D maps, check my Unique 3D page.