Jean-Baptiste-Louis Franquelin (1650-c.1712) was a French trader who was appointed in the early 1670s as the first cartographer in Nouvelle France (Canada) by the colony's governor. He was appointed in 1688 as a royal hydrographer by Louis XIV.
Franquelin was born in the commune of Pallauau-sur-Indre in central France.[1] He migrated to New France in 1671 where he was soon appointed as the colony's cartographer. He documented a decade of Louis Jolliet and René-Robert Cavelier de La Salle's explorations in North America. He also completed other projects for the Crown and served the king's military engineer. After returning to France in 1692, he never lived in Canada again.