Gustav Nachtigal (; born 23 February 1834 – 20 April 1885) was a German military surgeon and explorer of Central and West Africa. He is further known as the German Empire's consul-general for Tunisia and Commissioner for West Africa. His mission as commissioner resulted in Togoland and Kamerun becoming the first colonies of a German colonial empire. The Gustav-Nachtigal-Medal, awarded by the Berlin Geographical Society, is named after him. Life and travels Gustav Nachtigal, the son of a Lutheran pastor, was born at Eichstedt in the Prussian province of Saxony-Anhalt. His father died of Phthisis pulmonum in 1839. After medical studies at the universities of Halle, Würzburg and Greifswald, he practised for several years as a military surgeon. He worked in Cologne, Germany. Nachtigal contracted a lung disease and relocated to Annaba in Algeria in October, 1862. He travelled to Tunis in 1863, where he studied Arabic, and took part as surgeon in several expeditions into Central Africa between 1869 and 1875. He returned to Germany and met Friedrich Gerhard Rohlfs. Rohlfs asked him to go to the Bornu Empire. He then would be commissioned by King Wilhelm I of Prussia to carry gifts to Umar of Borno, sheik of the Bornu Empire, in acknowledgment of kindness shown to German travellers, such as Heinrich Barth. Nachtigal set out in 1869 from Ottoman Tripoli and accomplished his mission after a two years' journey. During this period, he visited Tibesti and Borku, regions of the central Sahara not previously known to Europeans. He travelled with eight camels and six men. From Bornu he travelled to Baguirmi, an independent state to the southeast of Bornu. From there, he proceeded to Wadai (a powerful Muslim kingdom to the northeast of Baguirmi) and to Kordofan (a former province of central Sudan). Nachtigal finally emerged from his journey through the Sahel at Khartoum (then the centre of Turkish-Egyptian Sudan) in the winter of 1874, after having been given up as lost. His journey, described in his Sahara and Sudan, earned him a reputation as a discoverer. In 1882, he was awarded the Royal Geographical Society's Founder's Medal. After the establishment of a French protectorate over Tunisia, Nachtigal was sent as consul-general for the German Empire and remained there until 1884. Thereafter, he was appointed by Chancellor Otto von Bismarck as special commissioner for West Africa. Local German business interests in that region began advocating for protection