Heimold Helczmanovszki · 1961
This article introduces the goals, content, and implementation of the "Atlas of the Republic of Austria," published by the Austrian Academy of Sciences. As a "cartographic regional geography," the atlas aims to comprehensively present Austria's natural, economic, and social spatial structures, including both analytical and synthetic maps, emphasizing functional relationships and regional typologies. Its scientific value lies in providing a reliable spatial information base, while its practical value serves policy-making and planning. The article also discusses the atlas's cartographic principles, organizational process, and historical context, highlighting its significance as a national atlas for science and public affairs.
H. Bobek · 1962
Hans Bobek describes the aims, organization and early production of the Atlas of the Republic of Austria, compiled by the Austrian Academy of Sciences’ Commission for Spatial Research under his direction. Its first installment appeared in 1961; five further installments containing another 100 map plates were planned over the following five to six years. Bobek argues that national atlases make regional relationships visible where administrative statistics and departmental responsibilities obscure them. He defines this atlas as a “cartographic regional geography” covering Austria’s natural environment, population, settlements, economy, transport, administration and culture.
Its thematic sections are designed to proceed from individual elements to spatial syntheses: terrain types and natural regions, settlement landscapes, agricultural production zones, industrial areas, transport networks and tourism regions. The final section is intended to combine these into economic landscapes, central-place systems and socioeconomic municipal types, alongside commuting, electoral patterns, settlement decline and development needs. Comparing this approach with planning atlases, especially the Planungsatlas Lavanttal, Bobek links their methodological similarities to recommendations he made in a June 1953 assessment. He distinguishes their purposes: the Austrian atlas supplies broad geographical information and a framework for regional planning, while planning atlases organize evidence around development programs. He also treats spatial research as an applied, interdisciplinary study of inhabited and utilized space.
Maps carry the principal explanatory burden; accompanying texts and tables are envisaged for later. The main scale of 1:1,000,000 permits representation of approximately 4,000 municipalities. The editors seek precise locations and boundaries, geographical context for each theme, complementary analytical and synthetic maps, and extensions into neighboring territories where useful. Specialists and public scientific institutions prepare designs, which the editorial staff revises and coordinates. A nationwide municipal survey supplied evidence on central places; a Geological Survey inquiry into groundwater, springs and water supply was planned. Freytag-Berndt and Artaria handle technical production, printing and publication, supported by Academy and ministerial subsidies. Bobek presents the atlas as an information resource for research, government and the public, and as a means for citizens to understand their country’s spatial conditions and possibilities.
Hans Bobek · 1964
THE NATIONAL ATLAS OF AUSTRIA
The Commission on Regional Research of the Austrian Academy of Science is the official agency in charge of the Austrian National Atlas project. The Kartographische Anstalt Freytag–Berndt & Artaria, Vienna, are printing and publishing the atlas. Thus far, 43 map sheets, i.e. one third of the planned total, have been published in two fascicles. Governmental research agencies and scientific institutes are contributing to the compilation of maps. The editorial staff is rather small, consisting of the author as chairman and a few other members (H. HELCZMANOVSZKI, E. ARNBERGER, H. TRIMMEL) who are assisted in their work by some helpers and a cartographic draftsman. The basic principles and concepts underlying the atlas project are outlined. Basically the atlas is designed to be a geography of Austria in maps, its contents logically arranged and featuring a considerable number of complex and synthetic maps. The standard map scale of 1:1,000,000 has been selected because at this scale the planimetric position of a certain phenomenon can still be given with a tolerable degree of accuracy, a decisive advantage over diagrammatic methods of representation. The contents are grouped into 12 chapters, each dealing with a special topic: The situation of Austria in Central Europe; the physical environment; land occupancy and land use in the past up to recent times; settlements; population distribution, structure, and trends; economy; transportation; administration; culture; and, finally, complex functions involving socio-economic and political structure, and problems of regional development control. After some comments on analytical, complex, and synthetical maps there follows a final discussion of cartographic problems encountered in the preparation of the atlas sheets published so far.
