01 October 2008

Euratlas-Info 24


1) THE NILE LANDS 1862
Heinrich Kiepert (1818 - 1899) was a German geographer and cartographer who issued a wide number of historical atlases and maps, for instance Atlas von Hellas 1844, Atlas Antiquus 1861, Formae Orbis Antiqui 1893, Neuer Handatlas über alle Theile der Erde 1860. We have here an excerpt from a second edition of this Handatlas: a 1862 map of the "Nilländer", that is of the Nile lands, in which you will see the known parts of Egypt, Sudan, Darfur and Ethiopia, mentioned as Amhara.

2) WALES
The Brythonic or Welsh kingdoms were not definitively conquered by England before the end of the 13th century and it was King Edward I (1239 - 1309) who established a chain of fortresses to control the country: BeaumarisCaernarfonConwyHarlechRhuddlanDenbigh or Dolwyddelan. Here are these places, together with SnowdoniaBeddgelert orAnglesey in the Europe Photos section. These are images of a land of castles, mist and legends.


3) GEOREFERENCED HISTORICAL VECTOR DATA
We have improved the Euratlas Historical Maps in particular by adding the Ottoman sanjaks in all the centuries and by increasing the detail level of the French départements or gouvernements and of the British counties. Moreover we have converted our historical maps into a geographic information system (GIS) and we need now to finish the transfer of all data: provinces, regions, countries and cities. Presumably in November, we will be in position to sell the first Euratlas Georeferenced Historical Vector Data. The large amount of information present in the Periodical Historical Atlas of Europe will be offered in a very structured way and each user will be able to analyze, to display or to organize the data spatially. Euratlas-Info members can already download a sample of our georeferenced vector data in shapefile(.shp) format.
Subsequently, probably in February 2009, we will issue a HGIS 
(Historical Geographic Information System) Atlas of Europe. We are preparing a formal chronology and we will try to add it in this new version.
Of course, all existing customers of the present Euratlas Historical Vector Maps of Europe and of the current Periodical Historical Atlas of Europe will benefit of an upgrade price for the new versions, respectively, of the Georeferenced Historical Vector Data and of the HGIS Atlas of Europe.


4) MITTELEUROPATLAS
Dr Andreas Birken, a cartographer and a historian: author of severalacademic publications, has realized a historical atlas of the Central Europeancountries from 1250 until 1871. Here, you will find maps with a rare level of accuracy covering a wide area of Europe, from Marseille to Lviv (Lvov) and from Copenhagen to Rome. These maps are offering a complete and highly detailed survey of all the kingdoms, principalities, duchies, counties, lordships and provinces that existed in what is now Germany, Belgium, Netherlands, Switzerland, East France, Czechia, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary, North Italy, Slovenia and Croatia. This atlas exists only in German but this not a problem for users who are mainly interested by European history. Try the demo version.