Biography

László Magyar was born on November 13, 1818 in Szombathely

Szombathely

Szombathely is the 10th largest city in Hungary. It is the administrative centre of Vas county in the west of the country, located near the border with Austria...

, Hungary

Hungary

Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...

 and died on November 9, 1864 in Ponte de Cuio, Angola

Angola

Angola, officially the Republic of Angola , is a country in south-central Africa bordered by Namibia on the south, the Democratic Republic of the Congo on the north, and Zambia on the east; its west coast is on the Atlantic Ocean with Luanda as its capital city...

. He lived in Angola for 17 years till his death. His geographical explorations as well as his ethnological research were greatly supported by his father-in-law, the king of Bié

Bié (province)

Bié is a province of Angola. Located on Bié Plateau in central part of country. Its capital is Kuito and it has an area of 70,314 km² and a population of approximately 800,000. Municipalities in the province include Andulo, Nharea, Cunhinga, Chinguar, Chitembo, Catabola, Camacupa and Cuemba...

. The king's relations as well as his donation of 300 slaves enabled Magyar to go on six exploring journeys in Angola. Unlike other European travelers, he did not only explore one area, but also described the life of the people living there.
The African people called him "Mister What-Is-This", because he always asked them questions and wanted to learn so much. His main interests were the local people, their habits and the way they administered their societies.
László Magyar spent over a decade living among the native people and as a result he learned their languages.

Travels in Africa

Apart from a few major essays, his travels in Africa

Africa

Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...

 became known through his diary fragments and letters. No matter how valuable and interesting they are, they cannot compensate for an expert, scientific report of his observations. Since these fragments and sketches were often written in a hurry and the experiences were not always reported in a well-organized form, it was easy to find mistakes and contradictions in them, so soon reviews became less favourable and László Magyar's reports were regarded as unreliable.
Magyar may have been a good sailor but the study of his maps demonstrates that his knowledge of geography was fairly poor.
Consequently, his maps are distorted and August Petermann had to redraw Magyar's maps based on reliable determinations of position before he had published the map of the Hungarian explorer's first big inland journey. He kept the original watercourses and his routes untouched and shortened the distances proportionately.