Mungo Park (explorer)

Mungo Park
Posthumous portrait (1859) by unknown artist
Born	11 September 1771 (1771-09-11) Yarrow, Selkirkshire, Scotland
Died	1806 (1807) (aged 35) Bussa, Nigeria
Alma mater	University of Edinburgh
Known for	Exploration of West Africa
Scientific career
Fields	African explorer Surgeon's mate

Mungo Park (11 September 1771 – 1806) was a Scottish explorer of West Africa. After an exploration of the upper Niger River around 1796, he wrote a popular and influential travel book titled Travels in the Interior Districts of Africa in which he theorized the Niger and Congo merged to become the same river, though it was later proven that they are different rivers. He was killed during a second expedition, having successfully travelled about two-thirds of the way down the Niger.

If the African Association was the "beginning of the age of African exploration" by Europeans, then Mungo Park was its first successful explorer; he set a standard for all who followed. Park was the first Westerner to have recorded travels in the central portion of the Niger, and through his popular book introduced the European public to a vast unexplored continent which influenced future European explorers and colonial ambitions in Africa.