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, those 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'
1. Courtesy of our hosting provider and their tireless efforts to help
us more and more, the main contact channnel with us, i.e. e-mail (info,
etc.), will cease to be available, at least for some time (for urgent
questions and problems, shoutbox, on the
right-hand side, is available).
2. We have added several dozen town plans (Polish and Ukrainian):
- from the collection of Mr Hubisz: Jawor (Jauer),
Warszawa,
Bytom (Beuthen),
and a German, WW2 plan of Żyrardow,
dated mid-1944 (possibly the only plan I have seen where Herman Göring
Strasse cuts across 1st May Street). There's also a German, WW2 copy of
a pre-war, Polish 1:25,000 (Lemberg-Dublany), also dated
1944.
- a few dozen other
town plans, from the collection of polona.pl -
National Library of Poland.
We would like to annouce that we will not share any mapping material,
etc., related to the Russian attack on Ukraine that began 10 days ago.
As to the invasion itself, we believe everybody with a bit of common
sense knows best what to do about it.
pl
For
a change, some 'literature' (overdue) - which today relates, somewhat,
to the
current grim developments, that is, the Russian invasion of Ukraine:
the
'literature' here is two folders of the German, WW2 documents, which we
received from Peter K. Clark, who passed away recently. The materials,
marked as „Geheim!â€, were prepared by the German engineering unit,
Wehrgeologenstelle 16, and describe terrain and cross-country
conditions alongside the rivers of Dniepr and Bug. It was the line,
behind the German armies retreated in 1943/44.
Folders are available
as pdfs. Because some maps are very large, the longest is over 2 m.
long, and scanned at 600 dpi, the larger of the two pdf files is over 800 Mb. Therefore it takes patience to
download, open and zoom in to see map details in those pdf files.
For your convenience, the files are also available in smaller, more
compact version, at 150 Mb and 80 Mb accordingly. Naturally, to read
the manuscripts, you need to understand German. Page numbering is often
dual and often contradictory, some pages might be missing, but all
available ones have been scanned in the order they appear in the
folders.
The files can be downloaded from the „Literature†page (approx. 3/4
down the page), where we have also included some sections of the
British assessment inside the folders.
Also, several 1:50,000 maps and one 1:100 000 map have also been
made available via Mapster index sheets.
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