| Summary: | Studying cartographic activity and the uses of map in nineteenth-century Tunisia allows us to observe and analyze the relations which took place between Western and Indigenous cultures and between scientific and vernacular knowledges. These relations were visible through two major forms. Firstly, the elaboration of maps put travelers-topographers in contact with the political authorities and led them to draw on the knowledge of local populations. Secondly, there was a process of knowledge transfer to the cadets of the École Polytechnique du Bardo by European as well as by Tunisian trainers. In each of these two configurations, the map appeared as an instrument of knowledge. It also became an instrument of action, more clearly in the second than in the first case.
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