L'Atlas National de Hongrie

Summary

This article presents the rationale, guiding principles, organization, and projected contents of the National Atlas of Hungary, whose preparation was initiated in 1958 by the National Office of Geodesy and Cartography. Intended to remedy the absence of an integrated cartographic account of the country, the atlas is conceived as both a comprehensive scientific reference and a practical instrument for national economic planning. Its importance is especially pronounced in a planned economy, where maps can document existing conditions, reveal the territorial distribution of natural resources and productive forces, and support future development decisions. The project also responds to the international coordination of national atlases promoted by the International Geographical Union and to the broader need for comparable knowledge facilitating scientific and cultural cooperation among countries. Three principles govern the work: the atlas must provide a complex geographical synthesis, incorporate the most recent scientific findings and statistical data, and select subjects capable of meeting both scholarly and practical needs. Its program was developed through repeated consultation with universities, the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, statistical and planning authorities, and institutes specializing in geology, geophysics, meteorology, hydrology, agriculture, transport, and biology. Specialized cartographers will prepare the maps, while competent scientific and state institutions will review them. To limit rapid obsolescence, many plates will combine current conditions with historical change and developmental trends; concise explanatory texts will make the volume accessible to a broad readership. The planned atlas comprises 96 pages measuring 34 × 48 centimetres. Approximately 36 percent of the map pages concern physical geography, 55 percent economic geography, and 9 percent administrative, social, and cultural matters. Its thirteen chapters proceed logically from Hungary’s natural foundations—relief, hydrography, landscapes, geophysics, geology, geomorphology, climate, water, flora, fauna, and soils—to human transformation and spatial organization. Extensive sections examine agriculture, forestry, livestock, fisheries, industry, mining, energy, transport, communications, trade, tourism, population, settlement, administration, education, health, culture, and heritage protection. Historical cross-sections, often comparing the late nineteenth or interwar periods with 1960, are designed to clarify structural change. Particular methodological difficulty lies in economic-geographical mapping, which must evaluate regions comparatively, connect production with the physical environment, identify territorial relationships, and represent production relations through innovative cartographic techniques. The completed atlas is expected to offer an integrated picture of Hungary, improve understanding of regional disparities and interdependencies, guide the more rational territorial allocation of productive forces, and thereby contribute to the country’s economic growth, cultural development, and prosperity.