Atlas des Deux Amériques

Atlas géographique, statistique, historique et chronologique des Deux Amériques, compiled by Jean Alexandre Buchon and published in Paris in 1825, is one of the most ambitious early 19th-century French atlases devoted entirely to the Americas and adjacent islands. Dedicated to S.A.R. Le Duc d'Orléans, this lavish folio atlas was published by J. Carez, with distribution through booksellers Verdière and Bossange père. Buchon’s atlas is based in part on the work of American cartographer Henry Charles Carey and Isaac Lea, adapting their American Atlas for a French audience while significantly enriching it with statistical, historical, and chronological commentary. It features beautifully engraved and often hand-coloured maps, accompanied by extensive text describing the geography, political divisions, population, commerce, and history of each region—from North and South America to the Caribbean. Reflecting both Napoleonic-era scholarship and Bourbon Restoration global curiosity, the Atlas des Deux Amériques remains a significant carto-bibliographic achievement and a major contribution to early 19th-century geographic literature on the New World.