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This article examines the important French military contribution to mapping and geographical knowledge of the Iberian Peninsula during the period 1808 to 1823. Firstly, contributions of the Bureau Topographique de l’Espagne (1808-1814), which included different types of documents (such as geographic descriptions, topographical maps and military itineraries), are considered. The analysis will be focused on two main questions : what were the specific objectives of those different types of documents ? What was their fate in the aftermath of the Napoleonic period ? The second part of the article deals with the cartographic work due to the so-called “Hundred Thousand Sons of Saint Louis”, an important but little known episode which was characterized both by efforts to compile military geographic knowledge and by different agreements between French and Spanish armies relating to cartographic cooperation and mutual assistance and exchange.