This article deals with cartography in ethnology and more especially in European ethnology and evokes some historical aspects able to shed light on specific contexts in which the « cartographic method » was used or abandonned by ethnologists as a heuristical tool. It then points out some methodological and theoretical problems of ethno-cartography, namely the epistemological difficulties encountered in 20th-century Europe. Lastly it presents some reflexion on the geopolitical and ideological use of ethnological maps.