Eugene Romer’s 1916 Atlas of Poland: Creating a New Nation State

The work of Eugene Romer, founder of Polish geography, was framed by his involvement in the national cause. The Atlas of Poland, a key tool in his political activism, was completed during the First World War under the uncertain circumstances prevailing on the Eastern Front. It focused more on the issue of unification than on boundaries. Skilled in physical geography, Romer made use of a cartographical technique rarely applied to ethnographical maps, that of isopleths. In this article, we address the reasons for this daring innovation and consider Romer’s training in the Austrian and German schools of cartography before examining the reception of the atlas by geographers from the different academic backgrounds.     

The Tenpō-Era (1830–1844) Map of Matsumae-no-shima and the Institutionalization of Tokugawa Cartography

Japan’s early modern Tokugawa government (1603?1868) sponsored a series of projects of national mapping. The Matsumae family, ruling what is now Hokkaido, were loosely incorporated into these projects. It was only during the last of these, in the Tenpō era (1830?1848), that their lands were represented in the same manner as the rest of Japan because the central government made the final Matsumae-no-shima map. This article examines the production of this final official map of Japan’s north to argue that the Tokugawa’s institutional mapping made this region part of the nation through its own mapping framework, distinct from the cartographic forms with which national or imperial states are usually associated.     

New Light on the Medieval Gough Map of Britain

Remarkably little is known about the earliest surviving separate-sheet medieval map of Britain that takes its name from its former owner, Richard Gough (1735–1809), and that has been variously dated to between 1300 and 1400, and later. It presents a sophisticated cartographical image at a time when detailed maps of individual regions were almost unknown in Europe, yet nothing is agreed about its possible origins, context (ecclesiastical or secular), or why and how it was compiled. In the belief that historical interpretation has to stem from an intimate knowledge of the map as artefact—the state of the parchment, nature of the inks, palaeography—as well as image, an informal study group of historians and scientists (the Gough Map Panel) was convened in 2012 to examine the map through high resolution digital reproduction, hyperspectral analysis, three-dimensional analysis and Raman pigment analysis. Although the study is still ongoing, much that is new has been discovered, notably about the way features were marked on the map, Gough’s application to the map of a damaging reagent to render place-names readable, and the extent to which the original map (now dated to c.1400), although never completed, was nonetheless reworked on two different occasions in the fifteenth century, effectively creating two further maps. These and other findings are summarized here to encourage the further study of the map’s features that is needed before it can be fully understood.     

The Nature and Genesis of the Peutinger Map

The place of the Peutinger map in the history of both ancient and medieval geography and cartography is controversial. Many basic questions as to its sources, dating and purpose remain unanswered. In the light of various pieces of new evidence these problems are reassessed. It is argued that the Peutinger map does derive from a Roman original but that, without precedent in Roman cartography or impact on later medieval cartography, the mapping of itinerary data onto a base map of the oecumene is likely to be a genuine innovation of the designer of the archetype. There is no need to suppose the map to be an officially state‐sponsored product. The sources relied upon were commonly available and would have been familiar to the public in late antiquity. The purpose of the map is more likely to have been ornamental than practical. It is impossible to determine a precise date or location for the creation of the archetype, but the cultural viewpoint embodied in the map is undoubtedly antique, Latin and western.     

Emmanuel de Martonne and the ethnographical cartography of central Europe (1917–1920)

Abstract

Emmanuel de Martonne is well known among geographers as the founding father of geomorphology and as one of Paul Vidal de la Blache's main disciples. He also played a central role as a geographical expert on the Comité d'études, a body set up by Deputy Charles Benoist during the First World War to prepare guidelines for the organization of peace and, in particular, the demarcation of boundaries. De Martonne's special expertise was the construction and comparison of ethnographical maps. He applied his theories on ethnic mapping and improved methods of representation of mixed minorities to his map of the Romanian nation published in 1919 by the Service Géographique de l'Armée. In his reports on Central Europe, de Martonne claimed neutrality, but the graphical options employed on his map offered a biased view of the Romanian nation, inspired mainly by the views of the French school of regional geography.     

Extending modern cartography to the ocean depths: military patronage,Cold War priorities,and the Heezen–Tharp mapping project, 1952–1959

The first comprehensive map of any ocean basin—covering the North Atlantic region—was created in the US in the 1950s. Compiled by Bruce C. Heezen and Marie Tharp, researchers at Columbia University's Lamont Geological Observatory, the Heezen–Tharp physiographic map of 1957 was significant in several respects. It defined the large-scale physiological provinces of the seafloor, and highlighted its major physical features (including the Rift Valley of mid-oceanic ridge, which Tharp discovered). Military funding for oceanographic research in the early Cold War made possible extensive sea voyages that provided these Columbia researchers sea-floor depth profiles and other critical information; military secrecy persuaded Heezen and Tharp to adopt the physiographic approach when national security restrictions made new bathymetric maps ‘born classified’. But overlooked until now is that the Heezen–Tharp map also deeply depended on extensive support from Bell Labs, then laboring to install the first transatlantic telephone lines. Heezen's hope that the map would support the theory of the expanding earth over the resurrected theory of continental drift did not succeed. But the 1957 North Atlantic Physiographic Chart did reaffirm that representations of the seafloor, mediated by new technologies, fundamentally reflected changing motivations for studying the oceans.     

宋代知州知府与当地图经、方志纂述

地方志是宋代州府长官任职期内重要的施政参考和教化工具。宋代知州知府多兼具学者、文人身份,他们为当地方志从纂修到出版提供有力的物质支持,也以不同方式亲自组织或参与方志纂述,凭借权力取得了当地方志纂述活动中的主导地位,并借此增进与地方士人的合作交流。知州知府的参与是宋代图经、方志发展兴盛的一个重要原因,同时促进了当时方志纂述中两大特色的形成:一是宋代方志具有较高的文献价值;二是方志中"史家意识"的流露,从而出现州府长官代代续修一志的历史现象。     

英国皇家地理学会所藏上海开埠早期英租界地图考释

英国皇家地理学会收藏的一张开埠早期上海英租界的地图没有标注绘制时间。一种观点认为,该地图绘制于1846—1847年,另一种认为绘制于1844—1847年。两种观点均属推测。根据地图上的信息,结合当时英租界的测绘情况,可以推出该地图大致绘制于1846年10月1—19日。该地图为目前所见近代上海英租界最早的一幅城市地图,为早期上海英租界城市发展史提供了有力证据,并弥补了《上海道契》记载的不足,具有十分重要的史料价值。