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We've added second, somewhat larger (approx. 1300 sheets) part of
Russian & Soviet 1:42 000 (one-verst) set of maps from the Library
of Congress. Please note that, while the number of sheets is large, a
significant part of it are various print runs of the same sheets
(sometimes up to 5), or doubles. Approximately half of the number is
post-WW1, Soviet re-editions (1927 - 1939), while of the rest, approx.
90% are pre-1917 Russian (Empire) sheets that were orignally, held in
'Archiwum WIG'.
This 2nd batch of 1:42,000 maps is most likely the last one from the
US-held collections and missing sheets will need to be
found in (friendly) libraries and archives in Europe.
Still to process in this scale: approx. 200 scans dated 1919 - 1921,
roughly from the area of Don river, a small number (several perhaps),
dated 1930s from the area around Kursk and some 60 sheets, also from
that period, from Transcaucasia. Without index sheets in mapster,
these sheets will be added to map lists.
Please note: numbering of one-verst maps was somewhat 'irregular',
particularly by 1917, and some sheet display, instead of regular,
numbering for half-verst maps (1:21,000) and / or two-verst (1:84 000).
If you see any errors, e.g. a sheet is found in the wrong 'slot' in
mapster index sheet, please let us know, as our errors might later be
multiplied by other systems.
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Given today's victory parade at the Red Square in Moscow, it's worth
mentioning, for those who detailed study of history: there was yet
another parade that took place on 22nd September 2022 in Brest (Belarus).
That event was the result of the invasion of Poland in September 1939,
by Germany and the Soviet Union which, itself was the effect of a
treaty signed on 23rd 1939: German–Soviet Boundary and Friendship
Treaty.
In 1940, a 'Mixed Soviet-German Central Commission for Border-related
Matters' issued (in 50 copies) a set of maps in scale 1:5000 and
1:25,000, under a relatively concise name of:
"Maps of the state and interest border of the German Reich and the
state border of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics from border
marker no. I/1 to the border marker in the joint of borders of German
Reich - Union dSSR - Hungary"
= Karten der Staats-
und Interessengrenze des Deutschen Reiches und der Staatsgrenze der
Union der Sozialistischen Sowjetrepubliken vom Grenzzeichen Nr. I/1 bis
zum Grenzzeichen im dreiort Deutsches Reich - Union dSSR - Ungarn)
The set has been made available courtesy of the Library of Congress. All
scans at 400 dpi.
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An update, this time, this time with great help from the Library of
Congress:
- approx. 880 sheets
of a Russian (and Soviet) 1:42,000 maps (so-called one-verst map).
Although the number of sheets is substantial, majority are 'only' new
variants (prints, editions) available earlier. Please let us know if
you find that some new sheets do not seem to relate to the terrain they
are supposed to - mistakes are possible, when handling hundreds of
files it was quite easy to mistake sheet number LXXI with LIXXI, etc.
Some sheets from central Poland, with 'Archiwum WIG' stamp are
available in a 1/4 size, and further marked, presumably in AMS, as NE,
SE, SW and NW. Soviet editions (1926 - 1939 which show the areas of
pre-WW2 Poland and Lithuania, are a compilation of pre-1914 Tsarist
editions, sometimes updated from post-WW1 Polish and Lithuanian maps,
so please, treat what you see on the map with some... caution.
- approx. 70 sheets of
the AMS M752 map of East Prussia, 1:50 000, which covers the
post-WW2 Kaliningrad Oblast and some parts of north-eastern Poland (a
few missing sheets should become available from other libraries,
hopefully by end of this year). Please note, while the maps were
published between 1954 - 1963, they actually show the situation for
1930 - 1944, as they are a mere combination / compilation of 1:25 000 -
1:50 000 German, Polish, and Soviet maps.
- Two sub-variants of
German 1:300, 000 (Uebersichskarte von Mitteleuropa, Osteuropa),
both prepared by German Wehr-geo units tasked with production of maps,
mainly for defence of a given area:
- 4 sheets "Karte der Wasserstandsschwankungen an Flüssen und Seen in
Gebiete Petersburg-Ilmansee" (Map of water level fluctuations on rivers
and lakes in the Petersburg-Ilmansee region) dated 1943 roku. Probably
belonged to a "Mil-Geo Beschreibung' (Geographical-Military Description
volume) for the region.
- 7 sheets (including 3 copies, prorably, post-WW2, US-made), they can
be called, in short 'Gewässerkarte' (Map of water obstacles). As they
are semi-manuscripts and we have found no other, finished editions of
this type in any other library, we can assume it was a trial,
abandoned, perhaps later conslidated into a Mil-Geo edition of
1:300,000 map.
- 1 sheet of
Grossblatt (2433), :100,000 from a very rare series of
Geographical-Military maps of Germany
(Militaergeographische Einzelangaben Deutschland) produced between 1939
- 1945. As can ce seen from Mapster index and the
AMS indexes from 1950 and 1951, a significant number of
sheets were produced, but they're very hard to find in libraries,
possibly due to a-typical numbering.
- 1 sheet of AMS
1:100, 000 series M641 'Central Europe', K6 Rostock, a
variant with simplified situation, but including an overprint of
defence positions, dated beginning of May 1945. Unfortunately, a few
other sheets available in the library were in such a poor state that it
would have taken too much time to prepare them for scanning.
- Soviet 1: 1mln map
of Poland from 1954
- nGerman WW2 plan of
a Russian / Soviet town of Niznij Nowgorod, dated 1941, happened to be
at hand at the right time and place, so ended up getting scanner.
1
A minor Christmas & New Year update:
- several 1:400 000 Polish maps (Mapa
operacyjna), copies or re-worked sheets of the
Austro-Hungarian Operationskarte
(a number of the sheets available in mapster), most from the collection
of a Polona, digital arm of the National Library of Poland. Some of the
newly added
maps are by IWG - Instytut Wojskowo-Geograficzny dated 1920, others
(black&white) sheets possibly dated 1919 and possibly produced by
the
Dowodztwo Glowne, Kartografia, Poznan (Army Headquarters Cartography
Department). Given they lack any specific info, it's just a hunch.
From the collection fo the University of Berkeley:
- approx. 300 sheets of the joint (x4 sheets
combined) German
maps called Russland 1:100 000. Older sheets, from around
1940 -
1941, are re-worked Soviet 1:200,000 maps, while the newer ones, up to
1944, are based on the Soviet 1:100,000 maps and German air photos.
- approx. 95 sheets of the 'Map of the European Russia (Karte des
europaeischen Russland), 1:300 000. It is a re-scaled and
re-worked Russian 1:420,000 (10-verst) map, so-called 'Strielbicki
map'; the German edition by Reichsamt fuer
Landesaufnahme is dated 1939 - 1941, with a couple of undated sheets
from Crimea, possibly from 1942. The map, despite the name, extends
further east than just the European part of the USSR. University of
Berkeley set is very interesting, because the sheets are 'complete',
which this map
series is usually known only in part-preserved copies, re-used in
1944-45 to print other maps.
There's no current (active, clickable) mapster index but we have two
original German index sheets at the bottom of the map list; the one
from 1940 shows the complete coverage of this map series.
- one interesting railway map (Eisenbahnkarte Europaeisches Russland),
probabaly one of the annexes of a report by Fremde Heere Ost II dated
1942.
- a few rare German WW2 town plans from
Ukraine (and other areas of Eastern Europe). By the way, as
the Memel (Klaipeda)
town plan is particularly illegible at 300 dpi, we will scan it
at full resolution (600 dpi) elsewhere.
- from our own collection, approx. 30 sheets of a Soviet 1:200,000
map, mainly from Belarus.
approx. 30 sheets of a
1:50,000 (GSGS 4529 Med 4) dated 1945 (Austria), a re-scaled
copy of an Austrian and / or German 1:75,000 map. The series was
published by the 'Survey Directorate AFHQ' (Allied Force
Headquarters). As there's no modern
index sheet for this series in mapster, you can use one from 1945
that's available underneath the list of sheets. The series is marked on
the index sheet, in the bottom-right corner, in GREEN. For those
interested in AFHQ history and
structure, here's a pdf file.
a few British and US 1M map series
covering Europe and Asia (AMS 1301 / AMS 5301, 5302 / GSGS
2555 / GSGS 4646), dated 1940 - 1965. There have been quite a few of
series in this scale and they might be continued until today and we
have no time to figure out details and nuances, they have
'provisionally' ended in one bag (list).
right in the same 'bag', about 20 sheets
of a British small-scale (2.5M) map series GSGS 4340 / HIND 1080)
which covers Asia, though the sheets started from... the Black Sea.
Some scans are doubles, but here and there, different publishing dates
are available.
...and one (probably out of 2) sheets of
‘Highlands of Tibet
and Surrounding Regions’. Interestingly, the map shows a
dense network of railways, most of which no longer exist.
approx.
1000 sheets of the‘Topographische
Karte’ (Messtischblatt, 1:25 000, the ‘eastern’ part, i.e. east of the Oder river , mainly Western Poland. Majority of those sheets have
already been available, but some of the new ones have different
publishing dates.
All Leibniz-Institut fuer
Laenderkunde maps, though scanned really well, are available only at
300
dpi.
approx. 700 sheets of a German „Russland” map, 1:50,000 dated 1942 - 1944/45;
the map covers the arc of Eastern Europe, from the Baltic States,
Belarus, parts of Russia, to the Ukrainian border against Moldova
/Transnistria along the Dnieper (Dnipro) river and, in south-east, probably extended past
Crimea and possibly covered the east coastline of the Black Sea
approx.
20 double (x2) sheets
of the same map, mainly from the central area, i.e. current
Belarus. Unfortunately there's no index sheet in mapster available, so
the sheets were put on a list.
As to the map type itself: German
1:50,000, under a code-names of Eol 50 (Ostland) and Esu 50
(Sowjetunion) based on a compilation of map sources: captured Polish
maps by WIG, likewise Lithuanian, Latvian and Estonian maps, but
primarily, based on massive cache of Soviet 1:50,000 and 1:100,000
maps, additionally updated from German air photos from 1942-1944 and
field reports. We don't know the extent of this map type, so when
mapster index was drawn, the range was rather... excessive, stretching
to Berlin in the west. No cler, original German index sheets are
available (yet), we added what was at hand below the index sheets of
single and quadruple sheets. Given the area
covered by this map type, and number of war-time editions, estimated
number of sheets could have easily run into a few thousands, or more.
However, we do not expect to add any further sheets either this year -
or the next either.
It needs to be acknowledged, that using this map type in mapster is
difficult; firstly, because mapster database of place names does not
extend to the east. Secondly, mapster index 'background maps' do not
extend east of Poland either, so it's hard to identify individual map
sheets against large terrain features, such as cities, rivers or large
lakes. Thirdly, you can't see sheet names on the mapster Russland
1:50,000 map series. We will try to improve it somewhat by adding sheet
names to the index, but please bear in mind it's over 700 German,
Russian / Lithuanian / Ukrainian place-names. They need to be located,
checked and entered into database manually, which is a very
time-consuming process - we'll start from the larger towns / sheet
titles.
a few town plans from Central & Eastern
Europe, among them, notably, a plan and a brochure dated
1883, with a seemingly vague title "Der Hafen zu Neufahrwasser" (The
Harbour of Neufahrwasser), which shows not only a part of port
facitlities of Danzig / Gdansk, but also the area which, later, becomes
recognised under the name of 'Westerplatte'
For your information, adding town plans from Polona collection is
takes a long time to complete, as it's a laborious proces: each file
needs to be 'processed' manually, i.e. correct name, scale, publication
date and call number need to be added to the file name, and then, all
of this needs to be manually entered into our system, as there's no
quick and easy way to convert all this information automatically. For
reference, there's still about 200 - 400 town plans to add, mainly
related to Central & Eastern Europe, plus a good few thousands
individual maps at various scales which also need to be processed
manually. This will take time.
Nevertheless, some things can be semi-automated, so we have addedd
approx. 70 sheets of the
Soviet 1:50,000 map, mostly dated around 1980s, the area is
Kaliningrad Oblast.
All map files in mapster (igrek.amzp.pl) are (temporarily) unavailable, courtesy of our hosting provider who, from time to time, likes to keep us on our toes. It's a relatively minor technical problem though and the person who can fix it is very likely to do it next week. An update: map files are back online, though it might take a couple of hours to have all of them available.
A small update after a short break:
- approx. 200 - 300
sheets of Russian (and Soviet) 'one-verst maps' (1:42 000),
mainly from the area of the Baltic states, showed up on our map lists
already, but they never surfaced on our index sheet. It's quite
possible it was due to some encoding error related
to Cyrillic fonts (OUR fault!). Having 'added' those sheets to the
index, we also took some time to fix various errors in this map series
and addes some latin, historical (and current) place names. On top of
which, we added several sheets from the digital library of Polona. As a
matter of fact, majority of them were already available a few years ago
courtesy of Humboldt University a few years ago, but those extra sheets
are well-scanned, 600 dpi, and include a few 'new' editions too.
We do not expect the
collection of 1:42 000 to grow soon, it might increase some time
next year though.
- a few town plans
from the same digital library ('Polona')
- one sheet of German
1:25,000 air-photomap (Bildplan), Wolsztyn (Wollstein) -
courtesy, as usual, of Wydziałowe Archiwum Kartograficzne / Biblioteka
Collegium Geographicum, Uniwersytet A. Mickiewicza, Poznań, Poland
From the collection of the University of Berkeley, a few hundred
German & Austrian 1:75,000 maps which cover the area of Czechia and Austria,
Hungary and Slovakia,
and severa original Czech sheets.
Unfortunately, all maps were scanned at 300 dpi, so this is the only
resolution available.
A surprise from Mr Brendon Whyte, National Library of Australia,
who shared 2 maps of Russia. The first is one we already have from
previous editions, this one, however, Jan. 1944, showd the amin borders
of the Reichskommissariat
Ostland i Reichskommissariat Ukraine. Another map, from
1970s' Soviet Union, to is a wall map of Old
Rus State; it relates to the debate on the margins of
current Russian war against Ukraine, about who was who ruled whom, and
when, etc.
As always, in the process of year-long spring-cleaning, we
managed to consolidate, to some degree, various small-scale German maps
of WW2. Ultimately, all irregular and joint
editions of 'Ãœbersichtskarte' and 'Operationskarten', 1:1 mln scale,
ended up in one list. We will not create an index sheet
though. The maps were compiled for various military compaigns, so
individual sheets overlap significantly. Some of those irregular
editions are mentioned in the original index sheets which are available
below the map list.
On the subject of index sheets, we have added another few dozen
of original German index sheets, they can be found below individual map
series.
And finally... courtesy of a person who wished to remain
anonymous, we managed to scan unique brochurers called'Kartenbriefe',
issue 20 - 29, with an overview of developments and progres in German
war-time military cartography. Some brochures are short of index
sheets, as they were re-used by US and British post-WW2 military
cartography services and libraries. Fortunately, we managed to link a
few loose index sheets in those brochures to one of the last of them,
i.e. Kartenbriefe Nr 31. So, for a completed package, we miss only the
first few isues of Kartenbriefe. By the way, here's the shortcut to the pdf
files. And, a marginal note on Kartenbriefe: the issue of
April 1943 included samples of a German 1:25,000 experimental
photo-map (Bildplankarte) from the area north of Kyiv, Sample 1,
Sample 2.
A few other
sheets of this photo-maps are available on this list under the name of 'Bildplankarte'
Hey, Marek! Trying to access maps at your page "Other Central European Maps, via both Chrome and Opera browsers, I get the dialog box "File not found (404 error)
If you think what you'r
Hello: I do Polish Genealogy. I need a topo map of Poland with major cities which I’ve never been able to find on the WEB. It should show post partition Poland with an out line of pre-partition Pola
Hi:
Are there any other maps showing parishes such as:
Andrzej Tomczak
Siec parafialna
Wojewoddztwa pomorskiego
Okregu bytowskiego I leborskiego
W drugiej polowie xvi wieku
Skala 1:300.
Thanks
