Justus Perthes Geographische Anstalt (Geographical Institute) in Gotha (Germany), a leader in explorative cartography, was one hundred years old in 1885, the same year the Berlin Congo Conference ended. To mark its centenary, the Institute decided to publish a wall map of Africa. This would go hand in hand with the endeavors of European nations to formally take possession of Africa and, at the same time, respond to growing demand for modern cartographic material concerning the continent. The Perthes cartographer Hermann Habenicht designed a ten-sheet Spezialkarte (special map) of Africa on the fairly large scale of 1:4,000,000. It went through three editions, the last published in 1892. A portfolio of nearly eighty pages of explanatory Notices accompanying the map sheets details how the map was compiled and lists the sources used, drawing on explorers itineraries and travel accounts. This paper highlights and discusses the salient features of both the map and the Notices, towards a better understanding of African exploration and mapping at the end of the nineteenth century.