Hand-drawn one-off maps produced beginning in 1822 for the entire territory of Prussia. The Prussian Urmesstischblätter were created at a scale of 1:25,000 to form the basis for smaller-scale maps, marking the beginning of modern topographic cartography. The Bundesamt für Kartographie und Geodäsie provides these sheets, which are available as plano prints and high-quality plots.
Use Cases
- Analyze historical land use and settlement patterns based on hand-drawn topographic features.
- Train computer vision models for historical map feature extraction based on the detailed cartographic drawings.
- Study the evolution of cartographic design and standards based on the foundational 1821 Royal Prussian General Staff instructions.
- Georeference historical landscape changes by comparing these original sheets with modern geospatial data.
Strengths
- Production began in 1822, providing a long historical baseline for cartographic study.
- Created at a detailed 1:25,000 scale, offering fine geographic granularity.
- Individual sheets have been reworked in color to more closely resemble the original hand-drawn artifacts.
Limitations
- Last updated 1844-01-01 00:00:00; freshness should be verified.
- Description metadata is limited; actual data quality and file specifics require manual inspection after download.
- Row count and column-level documentation are absent; field semantics must be inferred.
Provenance
- Source
- Bundesamt für Kartographie und Geodäsie
- Collection Method
- Hand-drawn cartographic surveys conducted by the Royal Prussian General Staff.
- Time Range
- Production began in 1822.
- Freshness
- 1844-01-01 00:00:00
- Geography
- Entire territory of Prussia (historical).