Frühe Beispiele deutscher Regionalatlanten

Summary

German cartography in the 19th century was characterized by a remarkable rise in thematic and regional map works. While national atlases only emerged toward the end of the century, numerous regional atlases appeared in the first decades after 1800, depicting individual states and provinces with unprecedented completeness. These early works laid the foundation for the great national atlases of the 20th century. This paper examines early German regional atlases through examples from the Electorate of Saxony, the Kingdom of Württemberg, Prussian Pomerania, and Thuringia, analyzing their pioneering contributions in survey accuracy, administrative boundary presentation, statistical data integration, and thematic cartography. These atlases were groundbreaking in three respects: they established the combination of topographical base maps with thematic overlays, created the methodological prerequisites for the later national atlas movement, and provided regional administrations with an unprecedented planning instrument.