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2018 | Book

A View of Dubrovnik as a Spectacle: Presentations of the Dubrovnik Earthquake of 1667 in European Commercial Cartography Read chapter Read first chapter

Dissemination of Cartographic Knowledge

6th International Symposium of the ICA Commission on the History of Cartography, 2016

Editors: Mirela Altić, Imre Josef Demhardt, Soetkin Vervust

Publisher: Springer International Publishing

Book Series : Lecture Notes in Geoinformation and Cartography

Part of: Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" , Springer Professional "Technik" , Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

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About this book

This book gathers 22 papers which were presented at the 6th International Symposium of the ICA Commission on the History of Cartography in Dubrovnik, Croatia on 13–15 October 2016. The overall conference theme was ‘The Dissemination of Cartographic Knowledge: Production – Trade – Consumption – Preservation’. The book presents original research by internationally respected authors in the field of historical cartography, offering a significant contribution to the development of this field of study, but also of geography, history and the GIS sciences. The primary target audience includes researchers, educators, postgraduate students, map librarians and archivists.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter

Mapping Urban Spaces

Frontmatter
A View of Dubrovnik as a Spectacle: Presentations of the Dubrovnik Earthquake of 1667 in European Commercial Cartography
Abstract
In spite of Dubrovnik’s exceptional maritime and political power, European knowledge of the appearance and topography of this city in the early Modern Age was quite poor. This was reflected particularly in the very inadequate and incomplete cartographic representations of Dubrovnik. A lack of city maps or vedute depicting a realistic view of Dubrovnik prevented European cartographers from including adequate presentations of the city in their publications. Right up until the mid-seventeenth century, practically the only cartographic portrayal available to the European public consisted of the schematic vedute of Dubrovnik published in the Venetian isolarii. After Dubrovnik was hit by a catastrophic earthquake in 1667, European cartographers expressed great interest in passing on the sensation of Dubrovnik’s big earthquake. Thus, a significant number of cartographic representations appeared for the first time shortly after 1667, mainly vedute showing the city at the moment of the earthquake and immediately after it. In this paper, we give an overview of the cartographic portrayals of Dubrovnik made on the occasion of the big earthquake of 1667 and analyze their accuracy. We offer answers as to the possible sources the cartographers used in their representation of the city and their evaluation of the consequences of the earthquake. In addition, we look in detail at the way the information was transferred from one veduta to another, i.e., how these vedute influenced the dissemination of knowledge about the real appearance of the city and the true impact of the earthquake.
Vinicije B. Lupis
Mapping the Metropolis: Analysing Map Production in Lyon and São Paulo in the First Half of the Twentieth Century
Abstract
A project of cooperation between the universities of São Paulo and Lyon has produced exchanges on the subjects of urbanization dynamics and spatial representations. The approach of two cities that differ largely in what involves periods and intensity of growth has been an interesting way to compare how mapping procedures developed in the first half of the twentieth century. In a moment of important urban sprawl, both cities have incorporated a range of new techniques, such as aerial photography or new geodetic networks. This was done in an attempt to cover the overflow of the city beyond its original borders.
Mapping activities were the basis for a series of new urban plans, even if they were not conducted in the same way or by the same kind of institution in each city. In Lyon the role of local private surveyors was particularly important in the new series proposed since 1910: 1/2000 mappings were used, building on a 1/500 cartography started in the 1860s. In São Paulo, the role of foreign companies, as the SARA mapping in the late 1920s, created a new reference map in the scales of 1/5000 and 1/1000 contributing to the idea of a modern city. In both cases, new projects for road maps set the stage for a city where daily mobility involved larger distances based on new means of transportation. This caused the need for a change in the scale and the way to portray a city that would be decisive for its further development.
Enali De Biaggi, Fernanda Padovesi Fonseca
Colonial Sydney: A Cartographic Record of Change
Abstract
This review of the cartographic record of colonial Sydney illustrates change from an isolated English penal colony of 1000 inhabitants, to an independent international city of half a million. Patterns of map production and distribution reflect changes in society and the structural evolution of a ‘world city.’ Histiocartographic analysis illustrates the:
1.
transition from a make-shift village to a world centre,
 
2.
evolution from a penal colony (1788–1840) via a ‘nodal city’ controlling exports, to an international city, important in its own right,
 
3.
and the switch from a small, ‘walking city’ with colonial outposts to an urban/suburban complex absorbing its rural hinterland (the Cumberland Plain).
 
Printed maps and their publication and distribution characteristics both illustrate change, and add to the dynamic with their focus on colonial printing history. Maps in the First Fleet Journals (1789–1792) show early hope, then disappointment while those of French visitors (Baudin, 1802) depict a composite and busy village. The impact of Macquarie is seen in a map by Thomas Mitchell (Surveyor General), published with the “NSW Calendar & Directory” (1831), a list of residents connected with ‘the General Post Office.’ It was the first local, commercially lithographed map, and represented a watershed moment when Australian printing could replace cheaper printing in Europe. Traditional European sources (e.g. printed atlases, Hansard, published journals) contained few large-scale maps of Sydney—from this time nearly all important maps were published by local printers.
Robert Clancy, Alice Tonkinson
Invariable Image of Cyprus: Reproduction of Siege Maps of Nicosia and Famagusta
Abstract
The island of Cyprus had witnessed a clash in 1570–1571 between the two renowned nations; the Venetians and the Ottomans. This prominent conflict between the East and the West brought about the creation of the siege maps. While depicting the war between the Venetians and Ottomans, the maps were also given information about the cities themselves. The cartographers depicted this conquest with the maps of the two most significant cities of the island; Nicosia; the capital city and Famagusta; the main port city. The maps of the conquest of the island played a role of telling and creating the image of what is going on in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea. These urban maps allow us to witness the turning point in history of Cyprus.
These sixteenth century siege maps were used to represent these two cities even after the conquest of the island by the Ottoman Empire. Consequently after the siege, the contents of these maps were changed and reproduced by the map makers in the later centuries. They became only material to represent the two main cities of Cyprus for next 300 years.
The paper focuses on the siege maps as informative materials about the two cities and the situation on the island for the European audience. It studies the reproduction of these maps and the changes that were made by the map makers accordingly to the time period and reasons behind using the sixteenth century maps to represent these two cities in the later centuries.
Merve Senem Arkan

Territory, Sovereignty and Borderlands

Frontmatter
Between Secrecy and Silent Cooperation: The Dissemination of Knowledge About the Republic of Dubrovnik in the Context of the Ottoman–Venetian and Napoleonic Wars
Abstract
Despite its exceptional political, commercial and naval strength, the Republic of Dubrovnik was remarkably restrained regarding the public availability of its maps. Only two original maps of the Republic of Dubrovnik are preserved to this date—one created between 1718 and 1746, and the other from the earliest nineteenth century. What links them is that both remained in manuscript form, and both were expressly banned by the Republic’s authorities from being either copied, published or shown to foreign nationals. The turning point in this regard was “Stato di Ragusi”, the first commercial map of the Republic compiled by Vincenzo Maria Coronelli in 1688, according to the information provided by Dubrovnik authorities. Created under the most unusual circumstances, the map remained the only printed detailed map of the Republic of Dubrovnik up until its fall in 1808. The paper analyzes how the Republic of Dubrovnik was represented on maps made by Dubrovnik authorities and how the same space was seen by foreign cartographers. Furthermore, the paper evaluates the impact of the Republic’s diplomats on the dissemination of knowledge about the Republic in the context of the Ottoman-Venetian and Napoleonic wars.
Mirela Altić
Cartographic Exchange and Territorial Creation: Rewriting Northern Japan in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries
Abstract
The Tokugawa era (1603–1868) witnessed a dramatic expansion in the creation and circulation of maps, which moved from being comparatively rare items at the beginning of the period to banal objects of mass-circulation at the end. Yet the shape of Japan being represented on these maps was greatly altered over the course of this period, particularly with regards to the amorphous area north of Japan, known as Ezo. This transformation in geographical representation similarly affected visions of Japan held beyond its shores, which were partially the product of an increasingly, if punctuated and inconsistent, global circulation of geographic materials in comprehensible forms.
The geography of these northern areas of Japan was gradually clarified by the early nineteenth century, as European efforts at mapping the region were combined with the results of a succession of Tokugawa state-sponsored exhibitions that explicitly aimed to increase the state’s knowledge of its diffuse northern reaches. It will be argued here that the relational aspect of cartographic exchange is crucial to the demarcation of this territory as being Japanese and under the authority of the Tokugawa state. Greater appreciation for the exchange involved in cartographic territorial creation not only allows for the transnational process of state demarcation to be recovered, but also hints at the inherently relational nature of the imperial sovereignty that came to literally remap vast areas of the globe during the nineteenth century.
Edward Boyle
Change of Sovereignty and Cartographic Advance: Cartographic Implications of the Spanish-American War of 1898
Abstract
Rarely there is a greater booster to advancing cartographic coverage of an area than becoming a theatre of war. While the topography of the European nation states experienced a—by and large—steady improvement since the French Revolution, the colonial peripheries often experienced such significant updates only during times of contention or change of sovereignty. This paper discusses the cartographic build-up and fall-out of one such colonial clash, the Spanish American War of 1898. That conflict involved territories scattered around half the globe from Cuba and Puerto Rico in the Caribbean to the Philippines in the north-eastern Pacific Ocean. This case study evaluates various aspects of how becoming part of the “imperial consciousness” is transforming the cartographic coverage of hitherto peripheral colonial territories like the Philippines and Puerto Rico from—by and large—private and small scale maps to official and detailed large scale map (series). This paper inspects the development of cartography of the said territories from the 1850s to the early 1900s, emphasizing administrative requirements, public demand, forms of publication and changes in content.
Eric Losang, Imre Josef Demhardt
The History of Cartography of Western Border Areas of Russia in Eighteenth to Early Twentieth Centuries (Using the Example of the Smolensk Province)
Abstract
The article describes the history of mapping of the Smolensk region in eighteenth to early twentieth centuries, based on archival materials as well as published sources on the history of cartography in Russia. The article distinguishes three main periods of mapping and identifies activities that characterize the development of scientific knowledge and the understanding of the surrounding nature. The article makes a note of the role of scientific institutions, government agencies and individual researchers in conducting geographic research on the western border areas of Russia. It presents unique cartographic works (a number of which were previously unknown) of different periods, reflecting the transformation of the territory over the course of its exploration and economic use.
Natalia Mikhailovna Erman, Viacheslav Alekseevich Nizovtsev

Map Production and Dissemination of Knowledge

Frontmatter
‘Back to the Drawing Board’: Map-Making and the Royal Geographical Society (1830–1990)
Abstract
Original holograph and manuscript cartographic materials, for potential or eventual publication by the Royal Geographical Society, survive in considerable variety, number and condition. The RGS’s first commissioned map (1830) was a facsimile of Hereford Cathedral’s medieval manuscript mappamundi. From 1854 Map Room staff became draughtsmen of large diagram maps for lectures; until 1877 external draughtsmen were generally employed to copy or produce the RGS’s published illustrations. Manuscript itineraries, astronomical observations for position-fixing, sketch maps (some derived from ‘native’ or indigenous sources), and printed items (Admiralty charts, War Office maps) were bases for compiling maps and large diagrams. Survey Department Egypt’s Capt. H.G. Lyons sent 6200 copies of the Nile basin orographical map for his Journal article (Lyons. Geogr J 32(5):[449]–480, 1908). Compilation rules (data sources noted), toponymy (transliteration, Romanisation and orthography), lettering styles, and technical processes (steel, then quill, pens to scribing) evolved. To recoup its expenses the Society hired out or loaned its illustrations and artefacts to other events and institutions (Herbert. The Royal Geographical Society. In: Monmonier (ed) The history of cartography, vol 6. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, pp 1371–1375, 2015).
Francis Herbert
Directory Maps: A Neglected Cartographic Resource
Abstract
Research in historical cartography has frequently focused on several specific fields, namely, the major products of an individual cartographer, state agency or nation or the study of a particular collection or genre of mapping. The advent of the digital era has seen this focus reinforced by the wider availability of high resolution digital images of the most important or significant maps in the world’s leading map collections. While the publishing of trade and street directories was a relatively short-lived phenomenon in the history of printing, the information included in the individual volumes has been recognized as a valuable resource for students of urban and social history. However, although the directories themselves have proved a fertile field for researchers, little if any work has been carried out on the maps which frequently accompanied the published volumes. This paper introduces the initial findings of research on those maps accompanying the variety of Scottish directories published in the period up to the outbreak of the Great War in 1914.
John Moore
Revising, Rectifying and Regulating the Danube: Cartographic Reconstructions of the River and the History of Maps of South-Eastern Europe in the Sixteenth to Eighteenth Century
Abstract
The representation of the Danube was always important for makers of maps representing Central and Southern Europe. This paper suggests that, instead of a steady progress, the improvement of cartography characterized by increasing accuracy was actually a slower and complex process. Cartographically, the depiction of the Danube Bend, a spot where the direction of the river takes a sharp turn, was highly important. From the mid-sixteenth century the region was occupied by the Ottoman Empire and could not be surveyed. After the more realistic representation on the Lazarus map (1528) the alternative images compiled by Lazius (1566) and Sambucus (1571), as well as by the Angelini family of military engineers distorted the spatial structure. Western European map makers in the sixteenth to seventeenth centuries misrepresented the river’s course and distorted the spatial structure (e.g. Mercator, Blaeu, Coronelli). As exemplified by the map of the Habsburg military engineer Stier, field work only could not improve the entire structure. The river running across the former battlefield was first surveyed by Marsigli and his assistant, Müller. They calculated the coordinates of very few places from data collected by astronomical observation. Based on the new information alternative representations were published by Delisle (Paris, 1703) and Müller (Vienna, 1709). The revised and rectified river course in Marsigli’s Danubius (1726) eliminated earlier problems—but brought new local distortions. European cartographers in the eighteenth century reconciled different representations for their compilations. The situation changed after Lipszky’s map (Pest, 1806), which was based on a network of reference points, and the systematic hydrographic survey of the Danube (1823).
Zsolt Győző Török
The Fortune of the Cartographer Ptolemy Preserved in the Libraries of Rome
Abstract
The geographical work by Ptolemy (Γεωγραφική Ὑφήγησις) had a considerable fortune until 1730, even when modern atlases such as Ortelius and Mercator were published. Our contribution intends to examine the spread and the interest that the Atlases of Ptolemy had between Italians scholars and the reading public. Therefore, continuing a study already faced by Italian geographers, we propose to go further, to checking not only the presence of the various editions of Ptolemy, the state of preservation, the presence or absence of old and new tables, and especially—when we could—checking the number of users who have taken in reading these atlases. We found it useful to point out the places of issue of Ptolemaic Atlases, to highlight the area of distribution of this type of cartographic product in the libraries of Rome and consequently in the cities of publication of editions of atlases.
The examined Libraries are: Biblioteca Accademia Lincei e Corsiniana (BALC), Biblioteca Alessandrina (BAL), Biblioteca Angelica (BA), Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana (BAV), Biblioteca Casanatense (BC), Biblioteca Fondazione Marco Besso (BFMB), Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale Roma (BNCR), Biblioteca Osservatorio Astronomico Romano (BOAR), Biblioteca Società Geografica Italiana (BSGI), Biblioteca Vallicelliana (BV).
Our intention is also to edit a tentative list of comments on geographical work by Ptolemy. In conclusion we wish to consider the reasons for the geographical diffusion of the work of Ptolemy, even after the knowledge of the world had widened after the discovery of the Americas.
Cosimo Palagiano, Lamberto Lesti
Colonialism in the Bosatlas
Abstract
For the purpose of making available scans of all maps in all 55 editions of the Bosatlas (1877–), the Dutch school atlas, on the Utrecht University Library website, all these maps are compared to each other, in order to reconstruct the editorial process. The purpose of this web service will be to allow Dutch school children to follow recent history in their own school atlas and to study, diachronically, the recent changes in particular areas.
The first part of the project is to scan all 36 editions published up to World War II, and this period, 1877–1945, can be regarded as the heyday of colonialism. For this paper, the atlas is analysed from the point of view of depicting colonialism, trying to find changes in attitude in the language and the symbology used in the portrayal of colonial areas. For this analysis, the following aspects of the atlas have been researched: the sequence of the maps and the emphasis on specific areas, together constituting the atlas structure; the colouring of the atlas; naming (both the imposition of European names in the nineteenth century and the references to indigenous groups, their realms and settlements; symbolization (portrayal of settlements, boundaries) and finally the subjects mapped on thematic maps of colonial areas.
The results of this analysis of the colonial portrayal will be part of the accompanying explanatory texts offered to the users of the website, together with texts on the reasons for the changes on the same map from one edition to the next.
Ferjan Ormeling
The Dutch Commemorative Toponyms in the Seventeenth Century East Asia, Based on the Cartographic Works Left by the Dutch East India Company (VOC)
Abstract
The paper mainly aims at discussing the commemorative toponyms in East Asia used by the Dutch East India Company (Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie or VOC) in the seventeenth-century mainly by examining contemporary Dutch cartographic works. The VOC cartographic works include those for maritime exploration of the coastal areas and off-shore islands of China and Japan, as well as the only territorial colony of the VOC, the island of Taiwan, then being called Formosa. The paper classifies the VOC commemorative place names into those of ship names, personal names, geographical names, and the highlighted nature of certain incidents. In addition to exploring the nature of the VOC commemorative place names, the paper also concludes with the way that toponyms were displayed on VOC maps which reveals the language boundary in the southeastern coast of China.
Peter Kang
On the ‘De-measuring’ of Time and Space in the Models of the World of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries
Abstract
Terrestrial and celestial globes as well as planetaria, telluria and lunaria are representative models of the cosmos with high cultural and scientific importance. At a time when a global point of view is increasingly adopted by historians, the importance of these ‘chronotopical’ objects in the fields of history of science, cultural history, history of geography and arts necessitates the appreciation of the variety of globes, the involved protagonists, the history of manufacturing methods and technical innovations in globe production. Moreover, new technologies for visualizing old globes, will allow these physical objects to be transferred into virtual reality.
Andreas Christoph
Obliterating Historical Complexity as Academic Practice: Historiographical Maps of 7th c. BCE Egypt
Abstract
This contribution focuses on the interdependence between map production and map usage including adaption and re-circulation, which can be witnessed by a historiographical approach to mapping. Case study are the maps displaying the history of 7th c. bce Egypt, which date from the later 20th and early 21st c. ad. Key observation is the loss of specialised cartographic and even historiographical knowledge in the process of its dissemination. Though the case study presents a very specific example and, in addition, one that is based on a rather small corpus of sources, the author assumes that the detectable mechanisms are in operation on a much larger scale, though maybe less visible.
Melanie Wasmuth

Libraries, Accessibility and Specific Cartographic Resources

Frontmatter
Identifying Metadata on Soviet Military Maps: An Illustrated Guide
Abstract
In the aftermath of the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the commercial availability of previously classified Soviet military mapping has revealed the vastness of a global mapping project, previously unknown to the rest of the world, comprising detailed topographic maps and city plans at several scales. Although numerous libraries and archives around the world have acquired these maps, and continue to do so, difficulties in interpreting the metadata of each sheet have led to errors and inconsistencies in the cataloguing of the maps, potentially hindering their accessibility. This paper focuses on approaches to identifying metadata on the maps and will present some illustrated examples as a guide. It is hoped that such assistance in the interpretation of these maps in general will also be of use to cataloguers.
Martin Davis, Alexander J. Kent
Discovering Hidden Maps: Cartographic Representations as Arguments for Historical Narratives
Abstract
The national revivals of the nineteenth century contributed to the nationalization of historiography in Eastern and Southeastern Europe. Maps often illustrated history textbooks of the time and served as an argument for the territorial ambitions of the arising nations. Maps on military operations, boundary lines, medieval statehood or ethnography aimed to prove that a nation had occupied a certain territory for centuries; they functioned as a tool for the legitimation of historical claims. In contrast to national topographic map series, maps printed in books are always related to the surrounding narrative. The contextualization of both text and cartographic representation helps us to understand the function of these maps within a national narrative. Another way to capture the intention of the map is to embed it into the geographic reality. Once maps have been digitized and georeferenced, their projection within a GIS can offer clues about their accuracy. Ultimately, the cartographic representation in relation to the real world gives researchers an analysis tool to resituate maps stating an argument about a discourse [Harley (Cartographica 26(2): 1–20, 1989)] within a measurable framework. This method may provide new evidence about the intention of the author’s statement.
Tillmann Tegeler
Revealing the Past: How Science Is Unlocking Cartographic Secrets
Abstract
Although advanced imaging and analytical techniques have long been available, it is only over the last 3–5 years that they have been more generally applied to serious study of library materials. This has been driven by incredible advances in technology which allow for non-invasive, non-sampling, non-contact methods to be designed specifically with the curators’ concerns for the safety of the material in mind. At the same time the curators’ increasing awareness of what is possible has increased the demand for such services.
For maps, one of the outstanding developments has been hyperspectral imaging. This is a technique where an item is scanned and each ‘pixel’ represents a full colour spectrum, commonly 400–1000 nm. The large files produced in this way can be interrogated by sophisticated software to reveal erasures and obscured areas of detail invisible to the naked eye. Hyperspectral imaging can also be used for identifying pigments, especially organic materials. This technique is completely safe if applied correctly and with continuous dialogue between curators, conservators and the people carrying out the analysis/imaging.
It is now possible to employ science to date cartographic material, and to infer where maps might have been made. We can also use hyperspectral imagery to reveal underlying cartographic content previously obscured from view. This paper will examine how these techniques have been employed with varying degrees of success on the late medieval Gough Map of Great Britain, and two manuscript English estate maps, all items held within the Bodleian Library’s collections.
Nick Millea, David Howell
Leiden and the Dissemination of Asian Cartography
Abstract
Since the foundation of Leiden University in 1575 much attention was paid on Oriental cultures. Nowadays, vast collections on the South-, East- and Southeast-Asia are kept in the collections of Leiden University Libraries. An important, and for sure an attractive, part of these collections consists of cartographic material. On the one hand these are European, especially Dutch, products, largely made by the VOC (Dutch East India Company) and later by the Topographic Service in Batavia, the capital of the Dutch East Indies. On the other hand, documents and maps of oriental origin were collected by scholars in Leiden. In this paper the role of Leiden, and Leiden University in particular, in the production, trade, consumption and preservation of Asian cartography is examined.
Who collected these maps and atlases? What aims defined their collecting strategies? How ended these maps up at Leiden University? Various personal and institutional collectors from the late sixteenth to the early twenty-first century will pass in review. Among them famous collectors like Philipp Franz von Siebold (1796–1866), and Johannes Tiberius Bodel Nijenhuis (1797–1872) and institutions like the Royal Tropical Institute and the Royal Netherlands Institute for Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies. With the addition of the map collections of the two institutes mentioned above, Leiden’s map collection almost doubled in size in the past years. The incorporation of the libraries of these institutions made Leiden University Libraries one of the leading collections on Asia, and the largest on Indonesia worldwide.
Martijn Storms
Serbian Cartographers of the Nineteenth Century in the Collection of the National Library of Serbia
Abstract
This paper presents the structure and characteristics of the Cartographic Collection of the National Library of Serbia along with a brief history of its establishment and development. The collection is exceptionally diverse and rich in terms of content, purpose and dimensions, as well as production modes and appearance of the cartographic publications. Special emphasis is put on the history of Serbian cartography of the nineteenth century and Serbian cartographers who marked this period of social, material and cultural development of Serbia. The nineteenth century is of crucial importance for Serbian cartography because a change to more favorable historical circumstances finally allowed the completion of the acculturation process and the acceptance of the achievements of the European Enlightenment, including cartography. Along with the establishment of civil society and the development of different cultural and scientific institutions, geographic research and cartographic activities advanced. This paper explains the historical circumstances that accompanied these processes and accelerated the development of cartography in Serbia, as well as the different needs of the citizens and the army which instigated them. Maps from the Cartographic Collection of the National Library of Serbia, created by the most important cartographers of the time, will be presented as the evidence of these processes, which most faithfully represent the period.
Jelena M. Glišović
User-Centered Design of a Collaborative, Object Oriented Historical GI-Platform
Abstract
The project STREAM (Spatio-Temporal Research Infrastructure for Early Modern Flanders and Brabant) aims to create a research infrastructure that will allow spatio-temporal analyses in order to improve our understanding of the demographic, social and economic changes that occurred in Flanders and Brabant (Belgium) between 1550 and 1800. The Carte de Cabinet of count Joseph de Ferraris (1771–1778) offers information on various subjects for that time period and is considered one of the most important products of Belgian cartographic history. Hence this historical map was used as the main source document to develop a vectorial geographical database that constitutes an important step towards the creation of a research infrastructure. To build this geographical database a retrogressive method was used in order to interpret the historical map and its related data in an absolute geographical reference system, which the Carte de Cabinet lacks. Since STREAM results from a collaboration between researchers from different disciplines a specific user-oriented editing platform was developed to support the different actors. This platform allows the digitisation of the historical road network in a geographic reference system based on the current road network by means of a slider, a shift tool and an editing tool. Initial analyses have confirmed the strong geometric distortions of the Carte de Cabinet but also the multiple possibilities for spatio(-temporal) research when combining the information of the Carte de Cabinet with cartographic analyses of other cartographic documents.
Philippe De Maeyer, Elien Ranson, Kristien Ooms, Karen De Coene, Bart De Wit, Michiel Van den Berghe, Sven Vrielinck, Torsten Wiedemann, Anne Winter, Rink Kruk, Isabelle Devos
Metadata
Title
Dissemination of Cartographic Knowledge
Editors
Mirela Altić
Imre Josef Demhardt
Soetkin Vervust
Copyright Year
2018
Electronic ISBN
978-3-319-61515-8
Print ISBN
978-3-319-61514-1
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-61515-8

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