Prussian territory is covered by the Urmesstischblatt topographic maps, which were produced starting in 1822. The maps are hand-drawn unique pieces at a scale of 1:25,000, created by the Royal Prussian General Staff. They were not published but served as the foundational basis for creating smaller-scale maps.
Use Cases
- Analyze historical land use and settlement patterns based on the hand-drawn topographic features.
- Study the evolution of cartographic design and standards based on the 1821 instruction and explanatory notes.
- Digitize and georeference historical map sheets for comparison with modern geospatial data.
- Train computer vision models for historical map feature recognition based on the available plano prints and high-quality plots.
Strengths
- Maps are hand-drawn unique pieces, indicating high original detail.
- Production began in 1822, providing foundational historical coverage of Prussia.
- Some individual sheets have been reworked in color to be more similar to the original.
Limitations
- Last updated 1822-12-31 00:00:00; freshness should be verified.
- Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
- Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
Provenance
- Source
- Bundesamt für Kartographie und Geodäsie
- Collection Method
- Hand-drawn by the Royal Prussian General Staff based on 1821 instructions.
- Time Range
- Production began in 1822.
- Freshness
- 1822-12-31 00:00:00
- Geography
- Entire territory of Prussia.