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In recent years, many maps produced in the former Soviet Union have become available. However, researchers have focused on topographical maps or those of Western cities produced by the General Staff for military use, and less on maps created by GUGK, the state mapping agency, for domestic purposes, including tourism. By contrast, this paper focuses on maps produced for tourists, whether travelling by private car or on an organized rail or bus tour. The 42 maps reviewed take three main forms: those covering a single administrative region, ranging from an oblast to a Soviet republic; those of a specific tourist area or associated with a literary hero; and strip maps connecting major cities. The paper considers the general design and symbology used on these maps, tracing some of the stylistic changes and developments in the quarter-century prior to the collapse of the Soviet Union. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the development of a triangulation network in the time of Napoleon I, when, due to imperial expansion, the extension of the existing triangulation network was necessary to extend Cassini's original map of France to the newly conquered territories of the French Empire. For this purpose, triangulators had to connect the already existing regional networks with the basic French network, as well as establish completely new ones in regions where they had not existed until then. Connecting various networks into a single chain was not only aimed at improving the accuracy of maps; it was also a clear reflection of a new understanding of territorial sovereignty. This paper examines which networks were established within modern-day northern Italy and maritime Croatia, and how they were mutually harmonized and interconnected, as well as what kind of repercussions this had on the development of mapping and map standardization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The final position of the Norwegian–Swedish border was determined in 1751, after challenging negotiations. This paper focuses on central parts of Scandinavia and investigates the role of cartography in the border positioning process. The examination of a wide variety of historical maps before and after the border treaty provides insight into the differing opinions on the border region's shifting affiliation. Other factors that helped to shape the borderline were a turbulent political situation with shifting sovereignty over the area in question, as well as conflicts over valuable resources. The findings indicate that cartographic evidence had an important role in the position of the Norwegian–Swedish border in central Scandinavia. The paper adds to our understanding of maps as a political tool as well as of the role of resources in border processes, and provides new knowledge on how cartography influenced a national border between two countries fighting for land, resources and hegemony. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

3D cartographic visualization of a continuous time-dependent phenomenon is not an easy task. The focus of this research is motivated by the struggle to visualize such a phenomenon. Based on the current state of the art, we implemented new visualization methods to visualize continuous time-dependent phenomena. All visualizations are based on the use case of road-traffic-generated noise in outdoor urban areas. These visualizations utilize the third dimension of the map scene. The first two methods focus on the variations of the noise in the vertical dimension (i.e. height). The third method is based on the idea of space–time cube and therefore utilizes the time variable as the third dimension. For demonstration purposes, all methods were implemented in an online application. Furthermore, user testing of those applications was conducted. This paper thus describes design, implementation and user evaluation of newly proposed methods for third dimension visualization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Southern Baptist cartographic style portraying Yorùbáland in the mid-nineteenth century shifted the graphic appearance of this geographical space. This paper asserts that this graphic appearance reflects the evangelical thought of spreading the gospel and marked a very significant transition in the visual portrayal of West-Central Africa. Employing an historical-stylistic analysis, this paper examines the Christian missionary contribution to the appearance of the Yorùbá landscape in nineteenth-century maps. The Southern Baptist missionary maps of the 1850s, resulting from evangelical discourses and missionary work, highlighted geographical features that gave a new landscape identity to Yorùbáland. The map design of this ethno-territorial space emphasises an evangelical concern for well-populated regions. Hence, this study highlights the role of missionary maps in the distinctive visual expression of an ethnic territory in West African geography. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an overview of the development and the establishment of Soviet educational cartography, using the example of school world atlases. Geography, as a compulsory school subject, began to be implemented in the curriculum only after 1934, putting maps right at the centre of the educational process. This triggered the formation of new governmental committees and centralized map production, introducing new approaches to school atlases and new content that was aligned to the newly developed programme. This paper, therefore, examines the changes in the cartographic production and content of school world atlases from the late nineteenth century until 1937 against the context of changes in managing and perceiving the Russian and Soviet spaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Soviet military maps utilized a comprehensive cartographic symbology that was designed for mapping the globe at various scales, including thousands of towns and cities in street-level detail. This paper presents an analysis of the Soviet symbol specifications, as defined by the official cartographic production documents, and aims to offer some insights into how the challenges of mapping a global diversity of urban and natural environments were addressed. A further stage of the analysis examines a sample of 19 Soviet military city plans to evaluate the implementation of the official symbology specified in the production documents. This finds that barely half of this symbology was utilized and that new symbols were routinely created as improvised solutions. By comparing the theoretical context of the symbology with its real-world application the paper offers a critical appraisal of the versatility of the Soviet approach that may inform current and future global mapping initiatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a novel approach to assessing the geometry of objects using Hu's invariants in the context of cartographic generalization. The primary focus is to improve the generalization process and produce more readable and informative maps. The study demonstrates the applicability and effectiveness of the modified invariant moment M1* in evaluating regular shape similarity. Experiments, based on 24 shapes, exhibit greater stability in the results and reveal the high suitability of this moment in the investigation and classification of buildings, among other generalization processes. The efficiency of the proposed method is compared to previous generalization techniques, showing a significant improvement in the generalization process. In conclusion, this research contributes to the development of cartographic generalization methods by introducing the use of Hu's invariants for evaluating object geometry. This approach can improve the automation of map generalization processes and more effective communication of geographic information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accessibility to tactile maps is limited due to their expensive and time-consuming development. Acceleration of their production requires standardized design guidelines that consider symbol design and production methods. In this paper, based on a review of research and best practice, we summarize knowledge on how to design tactile maps properly and provide a selection of highly legible, recommended symbols for the compilation of tactile maps. We also examine generalization constraints and other design parameters that are necessary for the standardization of tactile mapping. Finally, we explore differences in tactile map design depending upon the selected production method. Over the years, many useful guidelines have been developed although they remain unknown to the wider audience. There is still a long way to go in creating a global standard for the design of tactile maps. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the Cameron Aquatic Projection, a novel concept designed to depict the world's surface hydrosphere as it is, a continuous unbroken unit including oceans and rivers. After a review of related past projections, the paper will describe the parameters of the projection, according to the existing layout of surface water on Planet Earth. This description of the design principles is followed by the mathematical realization of the proposal. The article concludes with completed examples of the projection and suggests future applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A chart of the sixteenth century is extant, depicting the southern hemisphere and containing the earliest known representation of the southeast coast of South America, in the wake of Magellan and Elcano's circum navigation. In this paper, it is argued that astronomical observations of longitude were accommodated in the representation, and that the chart was produced in the specific context of the Juntas of Badajoz-Elvas, held between the representatives of the Spanish and Portuguese Crowns, to discuss the location and possession of the Spice Islands. It is further shown that the chart was produced using the information brought to Seville by the ship San Antonio, which had deserted the fleet in October 1520, before the passage to the Pacific Ocean was found. It is concluded that this chart presents a unique historical milestone in the history of cartography, containing the earliest material evidence of the effective use of astronomical methods to determine longitude in a nautical context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At present, Canadian census tract boundaries are available in digital form for 1951 and at 5-year intervals for the 1976–2021 period; the 1956–66 census boundary files have not been digitized and associated data are not readily available for the pre-1971 period. This inhibits the mapping and analysis of neighbourhood change for a period of rapid urban and social transformation. To fill this gap, we digitized 1956–66 census tract boundaries from paper maps for all cities for which such data were disseminated. We adjusted 2006 boundaries to match georeferenced historical maps in concert with ancillary data, including topographic and cadastral maps. All decisions are documented in the files. Finally, printed profile tables for 1951 and 1956 were digitized for joining the boundary files. Researchers may use these datasets to explore, analyse and map geospatial trends in the Canadian population at the neighbourhood scale back to 1951. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to quantify land cover and vegetation changes over the past 250 years on Norfolk Island, Australia, a remote island important for its cultural heritage and biodiversity. We collated over 130 historical maps and aerial photos from various archives, of which we georeferenced 80. Supervised classification and manual digitization were used to extract detailed land cover information on vegetation cover from 10 historical maps and datasets. While the classification and symbology used to represent vegetation on the different maps varied over time, we were able to track changes in vegetation cover on the island. We found that after the first (colonial) settlement, non-agricultural vegetation cover was at its lowest during the 1940s, and has since then expanded. We found high constancy of land cover patterns on the island since 1840 onwards. Historical maps thus provide an understanding of the dynamics that shape the present landscape. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports findings of a laboratory study that attempts to establish the limits of legibility for fundamental cartographic symbology on modern smartphone screens of varying pixel density. In a controlled setting, participants were asked to discriminate different types of cartographic symbology, while stimulus size was gradually reduced. From the collected results, the limits of discriminability for each symbol type and screen resolution are derived. The paper gives a detailed report and statistical analysis of the results of the experiment and proposes updated guidelines for minimum cartographic symbol sizes for settings in which a high-density display device can be reliably provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an empirical study assessing the usability and utility of different interfaces for visualizing large sets of point features in mobile maps. We focus on interfaces that present only a subset of all features and provide interaction functionalities for browsing through all of the information. We compare an established zoom-and-pan interface against three recently proposed interfaces that do not require a change of map scale or section. Each of the novel interfaces implements one additional, specialized interaction functionality for presenting all information without the need to zoom or pan. As a first step towards user-centred design, we investigate how well the specialized interactions are adopted by users. Given a visual search task, we show that participants performed significantly fewer zooming and panning operations using the novel interfaces than when using the zoom-and-pan interface. Further, we observe advantages in terms of search accuracy and the extent of the visible map area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to introduce a method that can be used for the verification of cartographic communication models. The authors of the maps were placed in the role of the users of their maps. Then, eye-tracking was utilized to reveal their map reading strategies and compare them with the strategies of other cartographers and cartographic novices. The crucial part of the data analysis was scanpath comparison using the sequence of visited Areas of Interest, which helped quantify map reading strategies' similarity. The use of the same strategy as the map author used might be a prerequisite for users' proper understanding of a map reflected by the overlap of the author's and users' realities in Koláčný's model. The overlap was considerable in most cases; however, exceptions in which authors used a different map reading strategy were identified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Topographic maps are widely used to provide geospatial information on digital environments, and the principles of cartographic communication positively impact its design. This paper proposes new road and building symbols in mapping Brazilian urban areas, aiming to increase the effectiveness of map-reading tasks (MRTs) in a multi-scale context. For this purpose, colour theory and semiotics were applied to develop new symbols and a remote test through an adapted think-aloud protocol. The results showed that users performed better with the proposed symbols than the previous ones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Friedrich Eisenlohr presented a map projection in 1870 that is optimal for a conformal world map of the sphere interrupted along an entire meridian. The projection has received little attention in the literature despite its theoretical importance. This paper gives alternative formulations for the projection and its scale factors and develops an efficient inverse for the projection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a comparative analysis of the Soviet military city plans of Tel Aviv (Israel) and Copenhagen (Denmark), that both date from 1985. It presents a methodological framework to examine and compare the quality and completeness of thematic information included in the plans, particularly the strategically important objects (which are identified, numbered and colour coded according to their function). Our results indicate that the Soviet city plans do not include all military sites located in the areas they cover. In addition, several sites are erroneously included in the lists of strategically important objects and the lists also include obsolete information on sites that were no longer in military use. Ultimately, our analysis found no substantial difference in thematic accuracy between the two plans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Soviet and Russian military maps may comprise any combination of over 1,000 map symbols and 3,000 Russian terms. These symbols and terms identify tangible aspects such as locations, unit/equipment type and numbers, but some symbols, and groupings of symbols, can also denote more subjective aspects such as movement over time, types of manoeuvres, relationship to the surrounding environment and other activities or conditions. Unlike Russian topographic maps that have a well-documented symbology system, there has been little study of Soviet/Russian military map symbology and terms. This paper offers a brief overview of the topic and discusses a few examples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As long as maps produced by the official Chinese state mapping agency at scales larger than 1:1,000,000 remain inaccessible, Soviet General staff maps provide the best alternative. Although toponyms are given only in cyrillicized form, vernacular script equivalents may be found on pre-1945 Japanese military survey maps as well as on some maps of the US Army Mapping Service (AMS). A unique feature of the Soviet 1:200,000 map series is the accompanying spravka or descriptive text on the reverse of each sheet, probably constituting in aggregate the most detailed description of China ever compiled. Soviet General Staff plans of Chinese cities include 'objects' of military significance, many of which are omitted or not identified on any other mapping. This paper presents translations of the spravka from a representative sheet of the 1:200,000 series and from the city plan of Beijing, together with an evaluation of the reliability of their content. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The plans of world cities outside the USSR that were produced by the Soviet military during the Cold War each include a List of Important Objects. These are items of significant strategic economic, administrative or military importance. This paper examines these object lists from Soviet military plans of British cities and discusses their contents. It concludes that there is considerable variation in their comprehensiveness and some inconsistency in the criteria used to select objects for inclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While dockless bike sharing is gaining popularity, oversupplied and poorly maintained bikes introduce chaos and waste (e.g., so-called zombie bikes that unused). Spatiotemporal pattern visualizations can help policy-making and infrastructure improvement (e.g., allocating parking areas). However, multivariate symbolizing (e.g., supply, flow, usage) to optimize dockless bike sharing is challenging. In this paper, we introduce metaphor theory to design multivariate symbols. First, we systemically explore the coupling of three metaphor types (orientational, ontological and structural) with symbols at three levels of iconicity. Then, we construct metaphorical symbols for optimizing dockless bike sharing following a user-centred design process. We also offer an evaluation using eye-tracking and questionnaire techniques. The results indicate that, compared with bin-packing and multiview symbols, metaphorical symbols significantly improved effectiveness and efficiency, and reduced participants' cognitive load. Our evaluation presents preliminary evidence that metaphors can offer new organizational mechanisms for map symbols to represent multivariate naturally and effectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Diverse user requirements has led to an increasing availability of multi-temporal data, the analysis of which often requires visualization, e.g. in multi-temporal choropleth maps. However, if using standard data classification methods for the creation of these maps, problems arise: significant changes can be lost by data classification (change loss) or non-significant changes can be emphasized (change exaggeration). In this paper, an extended method for data classification is presented, which can reduce these effects as far as possible. In the first step, class differences are set for important or necessary changes. The actual data classification considers these class differences in the context of a sweep line algorithm, whose optimal solution is determined with the help of a measure called Preservation of Change Classes (POCC). By assigning weights during computation of this measure, different tasks or change analyses (e.g. emphasize only highly significant changes) can be processed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Piers are vital elements in the formation of collective memory in Mediterranean port cities and they played an important role in Mersin's urban life until the 1950s. Although there are some oral history-based studies attempting to spatialize them, they lack any measure of accuracy and reliability, and carry the risk of leading to false memories. In this context, the aim of this paper is to illustrate that collective memory can be properly reconstructed by using historical maps only if appropriate methods of analysis and reliable maps are used. In this study, which is based on various historical maps of Mersin city, the locations of the lost piers have been determined by using georeferencing tools available in QGIS. The study reveals that the tendency to construct false memories could be prevented by using reliable maps and appropriate tools in GIS in combination with the archive records. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A brief visual comparison between Henry Beck’s map of the London Underground that was published in 1933 and its modern successor, issued by Transport for London (TfL) in 2022, reveals a loss of simplicity and clarity. Hence, it is important to question whether the map’s current custodian is maintaining design efficacy and preserving Henry Beck’s legacy. In this brief paper, I discuss how some aspects of the current design could result in usability issues, outline how I approached a re-design of the Tube map, and present a new version. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traditionally, most schematic metro maps in practice as well as metro map layout algorithms adhere to an octolinear layout style with all paths composed of horizontal, vertical, and $45^\circ$45∘-diagonal edges. Despite growing interest in more general multilinear metro maps, generic algorithms to draw metro maps based on a system of $k \ge 2$k≥2 not necessarily equidistant slopes have not been investigated thoroughly. In this paper, we present and implement an adaptation of the octolinear mixed-integer linear programming approach of Nöllenburg and Wolff (2011) that can draw metro maps schematized to any set ${\cal C}$C of arbitrary orientations. We further present a data-driven approach to determine a suitable set ${\cal C}$C by either detecting the best rotation of an equidistant orientation system or by clustering the input edge orientations using a k-medians algorithm. We demonstrate the new possibilities of our method using several real-world examples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The British Cartographic Society Awards 2022 recognized outstanding cartographic work and scholarship from around the world. The winners were announced for various categories, including the British Cartographic Society Award, the Peter Jolly Award, the Avenza Award for Electronic Mapping, the Garsdale Design Award for 3D Mapping, the Henry Johns Award for the Most Outstanding Paper Published in The Cartographic Journal, the Ian Mumford Award for Excellence in Original Cartographic Research by Students, the John C Bartholomew Award for Thematic Mapping, the OS Award for Excellence in The Application Of Ordnance Survey Data, and the Stanfords Award For Printed Mapping. The awards were presented virtually due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. [Extracted from the article]

This paper emphasizes the role of cartographic modelling of tourist routes in the Carpathians in the context of the development of tourist mapping. It describes the distinguished features of Transcarpathian and Eastern Carpathian tourist routes as the objects of mapping. These routes are extremely popular among tourists due to their remarkable recreational and touristic value. Tourist map series fulfil the needs of tourists and also form a relevant and promising practical area of modern geographical mapping. We systematise the principles and describe the methodological basis of cartographic modelling of tourist routes in the Carpathians. We particularly detail the peculiarities of the decoration of tourist maps. Our research contributes to the development of the integral system of spatial, visual, complementary, and comparative information about the region's location, conditions, and features of natural, historical, cultural and socio-economic tourist resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Flood maps group different types of cartographies related to flooding and the components and variables of flood risk and its mitigation measures. This paper analyses the most important facts in the development of flood mapping in Spain and assesses the current. While 60/2007 EU Directive has been an important step for mapping risk, future developments must: (i) overcome the concept of return period; (ii) incorporate other aspects of the European Directive, basically vulnerability and susceptibility to flooding from rainwater, also the effect of climate change on flood hazards; (iii) include scenarios for the consequences of climate change; (iv) incorporate risk cartography as a key element of 'green infrastructure', like tool in spatial planning; (v) Reduce the map representation scale; (vi) incorporate new elements within risk maps to improve emergency management; (vii) improve public-private cooperation; (viii) facilitate the legal use of hazard and risk maps in administrative and court processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cartographic generalization is a process similar to text summarization that transforms a map when scale is reduced. Cartographic generalization simplifies the map content while preserving as much as possible the initial characteristics and spatial relations of the map. The automation of this process requires a deep understanding of the context of each map feature, which involves different criteria such as the shape of the feature, the semantic nature of the feature, or the spatial patterns of its neighbouring features. This is why multiple criteria decision techniques can be relevant during the process. This paper proposes two use cases of cartographic generalization sub-tasks where multiple criteria decision techniques improve past techniques: the classification of urban building blocks and the ordering of the buildings to keep in the map as a priority. In both use cases, the proposed methods are experimented on large real cartographic datasets, and evaluated in comparison to alternative techniques. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The automatic placement of map labels in graphically dense areas is one of the challenging problems in modern cartography. Creation of the annotation layer still requires human interaction and automation of this process has significant potential for reducing the time required for map production. In this paper, we present a software technique for the key numbering process that we applied to approximately 20% of the 1:25,000 topographic maps of Turkey. The results were compared with those obtained from the traditional manual method. The consistency of the results is above 90%, achieving time savings of 70%, which indicates an substantial improvement in topographic map production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Historical maps are popular reference tools for historical, archaeological and temporal analysis, and there has recently been an increase in their use. However, for various reasons, the planimetric accuracy of maps produced before the nineteenth century is usually considered to be lower than today. In this paper, a new method for assessing maps is proposed, using a series of processes, such as radial-based function artificial neural network, magnetic declination, and also MapAnalyst software. The map used in the current study (of Europe and the Mediterranean Sea) is a small-scale map; therefore, control points were produced by taking reference from large-scale maps drawn by the same cartographer, Piri Reis (c.1465–1553). While developing this method, affine transformation (six parameters) was compared in terms of planimetric accuracy. The results indicate that Piri Reis's Mediterranean map offers us unique information in many areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the maps of East Asia and Central America drawn by Europeans between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries, and illustrates the distinctions in the roles of Europeans in these two civilizations through the investigation of cartographic differences. In the initial stage of Europeans' entry into East Asia and Central America, the local maps have both the characteristics and techniques of the outsiders and the insiders, reflecting the distinct scene of the encounter of civilizations. In the process of localization, the map system of East Asia deconstructed European cartography, the original purpose of early Europeans entering China was digested by Chinese society, and their role changed from missionary to royal courtier. European cartography deconstructed and colonized the traditional cartography of Central America, which corresponds to the history that Europeans gradually became the rulers of indigenous people in real life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reliable and unhindered access to raw materials is a growing concern within the EU and across the globe and the demand for Critical Raw Materials (CRM) plays a crucial economic role in most developed countries around the world. These are of extreme importance for supply chains regarding new technologies, sustainability issues and carbon footprint reduction. The definition of a continuously updated list of CRM by the European Commission led to the first CRM Map of Europe in 2016. Following this, several countries have been surveying, preparing, and evaluating their mineral occurrences to create a resources/deposits database and, therefore, to create a CRM map of their own. With this purpose in mind, we present and explain the first Critical Raw Materials Deposits Map of mainland Portugal, at 1:700,000 scale. This paper describes the scientific, technical, and graphical methodologies involved in its design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dynamic maps are commonly used for the depiction of quantitative information. However, their users often fail to notice changes in the intensity of geographic phenomena. Moreover, if the distribution of colour values between two scenes changes, the user might have a problem with recalling the colour arrangement from the previous scene. A commonly occurring mistake is indicating that the colour changed its value, while in reality it did not. This paper examines the potential impact of the magnitude of change on the detection of the fixed enumeration units of a dynamic choropleth map. The research is based on Signal Detection Theory methodology and uses eye-tracking technology to examine the change blindness phenomenon on spatiotemporal maps. The results show that regardless of the magnitude of change and the number of enumeration units, the participants were convinced that the colour value in a particular place changed, even though it did not. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cartographic representations of the Adriatic Sea basin on 11 (manuscript and printed) Early Modern Age nautical charts, made between 1538 and 1771, were subjected to a cartometric analysis in which their geometrical features were inspected. Additionally, four of them on which the graticules were plotted and were subjected to the analysis of their spherical coordinates, which was conducted in parallel. The results show that cartographers who produced printed charts in seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, never succeeded in surpassing the geometric accuracy of manuscript portolan charts from the sixteenth century, regardless of whether their charts contained graticules or not. According to the results and the historical context of contemporary technological development, it appears that in the era that preceded systematic hydrographic surveys, their authors had no other choice but to (partially) copy the inherited 'framework' of portolan charts as a reference model, and to implement certain localized trial and error modifications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Investigating long-distance travelling routes is crucial for understanding both historical decision-making processes as well as possible regional points of interest that may have been lost in the course of time. Located in the northern Ethiopian highlands, the city of Aksum was the starting and return point for both, Ethiopian, Arabian, and European travellers on the north-south passage to Cairo, Jerusalem or Europe, at least from the fifteenth century onwards. We extracted locations from travel itineraries from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and analysed historical maps from the fifteenth to the twentieth centuries. This data was used to calculate several least-cost paths (LCPs). Results suggest that route planning in historical times was in some cases very cost effective, while in others, visiting specific locations may have played a major role in path selection. Additionally, LCPs based on historical waypoints reveal several remarkable historical locations along their way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The British Cartographic Society (BCS) is a registered charity that promotes cartography. It facilitates the exchange of information and ideas among its members, holds meetings and conferences, supports cartographic education and research, maintains libraries and collections of maps, and provides publications and resources. The BCS offers various services, collaborates with other organizations, and has partnerships with different groups. The society's annual report provides a review of its activities, including council and committee meetings, membership updates, program highlights, and details of the awards presented. The Restless Earth program had a successful year, and the Society introduced GeoViz as a replacement for the Better Mapping program. It also provides advice and resources for cartographic and geodata visualization to the UK Government. The Society has special interest groups and is the adhering body for the UK to the International Cartographic Association. It hosts the World Cartographic Forum and publishes academic periodicals, magazines, and newsletters. The Society also has directories for map collections and corporate members. [Extracted from the article]

This report provides a summary of cartographic activities within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland from 2019 to 2023 and a directory of higher education courses, institutions, organizations and companies associated with cartography and the mapping industry. It is presented by the UK Cartography Committee to the 19th General Assembly of the International Cartographic Association (ICA) at the 31st International Cartographic Conference, held in Cape Town, South Africa, from 13th to 18th August 2023. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The British Cartographic Society (BCS) was founded in 1963, shortly after the establishment of the International Cartographic Association (ICA). Brigadier Denys Thackwell played a key role in the creation of the BCS and also served as the second President of the ICA. The BCS aimed to advance cartographic education and promote the value of cartography as a distinct discipline. Over the years, cartography has undergone significant transformations, with the shift from analogue to digital production methods and the emergence of new technologies. The BCS continues to adapt to societal changes and strives to offer relevant benefits to its members, while recognizing the need for a greater diversity of maps. [Extracted from the article]

Displacement is the most commonly used method to resolve spatial conflicts, but it creates difficulties in maintaining consistency in the spatial distribution pattern of building groups. In this study, a geometry constraints-oriented approach is proposed. First, buildings were classified according to the degree of encirclement by roads. On this basis, considering the road mesh as a unit, the minimum spanning tree was used to establish relationships between buildings and identify the structure of building clusters. In addition, the force received by the building was analyzed to determine the distance and direction of displacement. Owing to area constraints, buildings were scaled down to solve the problem of insufficient displacement space. Distance, direction, and area indicators were chosen as geometry constraints to conduct the displacement. Our results showed that the developed approach can effectively resolve spatial conflicts between roads and buildings, while maintaining the distribution pattern, and it is therefore a promising solution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

John Cruickshank draws on the specification documents to chart the evolution of the topographic mapping initiative and its successive attempts to map the vast domestic territories of the USSR and beyond. One hundred years after the Soviet Union was established, Russia's invasion of Ukraine has unexpectedly reignited the relevance of Soviet mapping and has supplied a more urgent rationale for its study. 12 Postnikov, A.V. (2001) " Maps for Ordinary Consumers versus Maps for the Military: Double Standards of Map Accuracy in Soviet Cartography, 1917-1991 " Cartography and Geographic Information Science 29 (3) pp. 243 - 260. [Extracted from the article]

The appearance of late-Soviet military topographic maps was the outcome of a long series of reviews and revisions of preexisting map designs. These generated publicly-available normative documents and teaching manuals. While most topographic maps of Russia have been secret, these detailed supporting documents were openly published for public sale. These documents and manuals are used to describe the evolution of the designs of Soviet topographic maps at scales from 1:25,000 to 1:100,000 from the Revolutions of 1917 to the end of the Soviet Union in 1991. The nature of the maps inherited by the Soviet Union from Imperial Russia, and the prototype maps of the 1920s and 30s are described. These are contrasted with these with those of the Great Patriotic War and of the post-war period. The designs of Soviet topographic maps were continually changing, and great contrasts exist between maps made in the USSR at different dates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the Cold War, the Soviet military carried out an ambitious mapping programme, which resulted in a global series of topographic maps. Although recent advances in scholarship have increased our knowledge of the production of these maps, we still know little about the organization behind them. Based on information from a set of 466 1:50 000-scale Soviet military topographic maps of Denmark, this article examines the Soviet mapping practices related to the large-scale mapping of Denmark. Results show that the Soviet military compiled large-scale topographic maps of Denmark between the 1950s and the 1980s. The maps were initially based on Danish maps, but later the Soviets began to prefer remote-sensed data from satellite imagery. This allowed the Soviets to capture information about concealed military infrastructure. The article also shows the potential for using information from the map sheets in a transnational analysis of the Soviet mapping during the Cold War. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Coatzacoalcos River is one of the most important rivers in Mexico. The oldest map of this river was drawn by Francisco Gali in 1580. Unlike most maps made in New Spain in the last quarter of the sixteenth century, this map is purely European in style and is somewhat reminiscent of a nautical chart. Analysis of the map suggests that it was made hastily. Both the errors in the distances and the numerous corrections that can still be observed support this conjecture. It seems that Francisco Gali was more interested from his point of view as an explorer and navigator in the most important aspect of the region: the possibility of connecting the North Sea and the South Sea through the Strait of Tehuantepec. In this respect, the map of Coatzacoalcos would have been drawn to show the viability of using the river as an interoceanic passage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Machine learning methods are increasingly used in the automatic generalization of river networks, but previous research lacks a comparative analysis of different methods using the same data set. This innovative study considers eight river network indicators, such as river length, river grade, river spacing, seasonality, connectivity, catchment area, tributaries at the next grade, and total number of tributaries, which can precisely describe the characteristics of the river network. The experiments were carried out and automated selection of river network was established based on back-propagation neural network (BPNN), support vector machine (SVM) and decision tree (DT) methods. We established that BPNN and SVM have high selection accuracy, but the parameters are complex. SVM is more suitable for small samples. In addition, DT has unique advantages due to its visualized tree structure and the characteristic of derivable rules. We hope that this study will provide a reference for the selection of river generalization methods in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Maps are useful for providing location context and for graphically presenting spatial relationships. They are often used in PhD dissertations to show the location of a study area or to present scientific results. These maps have to tell their story without the PhD candidate being present. We searched for maps in 575 PhD dissertations, and reviewed 192 maps in 65 of these: 38% were created by PhD candidates, 48% were inserted and 14% were adapted from other sources. Maps prepared by PhD candidates had more design shortcomings than other maps. Nevertheless, the number of problems with maps from other sources suggests that guidelines for including them in a dissertation could be useful. Our results suggest that PhD candidates use GIS software to design maps, but that there is room for improvement to guide users towards appropriate design choices. The results will help to plan support services for PhD candidates at universities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The geometry of Adriatic Sea basin renderings on 12 portolan charts made from the late thirteenth to the late sixteenth century was compared to a modern map by applying Helmert transformation in order to preserve their initial geometry and by using the same 40 identical points per chart. In the first stage of the research, the geometry of the portolan charts was compared to six selected map projections in order to determine the geometrical 'best fit'. In the second stage, networks of lines plotted on charts were divided regionally and functionally and compared to the 'best fit' map projection to determine their geometric patterns in more detail. The research results showed that Adriatic Sea basin renderings on portolan charts were probably the result of a deliberately applied map projection which was geometrically most similar to the modern conformal cylindrical (Mercator) projection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]