Kantia is the name of a

phantom island A phantom island is a purported island which was included on maps for a period of time, but was later found not to exist. They usually originate from the reports of early sailors exploring new regions, and are commonly the result of navigati ...

in the

Caribbean The Caribbean (, ) ( es, El Caribe; french: la Caraïbe; ht, Karayib; nl, De Caraïben) is a region of the Americas that consists of the Caribbean Sea, its islands (some surrounded by the Caribbean Sea and some bordering both the Caribbean Se ...

that Johann Otto Polter, a German merchant from

Leipzig Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as wel ...

, claimed to have seen in 1884. He described its position as "at the 14th circle of latitude below the Tropic of Cancer". He named the island after the philosopher

Immanuel Kant Immanuel Kant (, , ; 22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804) was a German philosopher and one of the central Enlightenment thinkers. Born in Königsberg, Kant's comprehensive and systematic works in epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, and ...

. In four subsequent expeditions between 1884 and 1909, he failed to rediscover the island to proclaim it for the German emperor. According to the German sociologist Wulf D. Hund, the story of Kantia is a mere fictional account conceived by Samuel Herzog.Wulf D. Hund
Rezension von Rainer Godel/Gideon Stiening (Hrsg.),„Klopffechtereien – Missverständnisse – Widersprüche? Methodische und methodologische Perspektiven auf die Kant-Forster-Kontroverse“
p. 1, fn. 4.

References

Phantom islands of the Atlantic Ocean Lesser Antilles Immanuel Kant {{marine-geo-stub

See also

References