Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
State Topographic Maps of Hungary
There are two types of state topographic maps: civil and military. In many countries
only one system exists (either military or civil). Nowadays in many countries these
attributes have no relevance: these terms mostly refer to scales or scale ranges.
Since Hungary became independent after WW I, the base maps of the military state
topographic series was 1:25,000. Between the two world wars, there was no official
military mapping organisation in Hungary due to the peace treaty after WW I, but
the one Hungary had was practically a military organisation. After WW II, in the
early 1950s, all Central and Eastern European countries became part of the Soviet
bloc (the Warsaw Pact, the mutual defence treaty of these countries was formed in
1955). In military mapping, all the countries accepted the Gauss-Kr¨ger system,
which was used in military cartography in Hungary till 2004. It was a logical step to
change the mapping system for UTM after joining NATO in 1999.
The state organisation of the civil topographic mapping was established after
WW II. The first survey was completed between 1952 and 1980 in 1:10,000 scale.
This was the largest survey campaign in the Hungarian cartography: more than
4,000 sheets were published in the base map scale. In 1969, the government decided
to make the cadastral and civil topographic mapping uniform (projection, geodetic
background, sheet numbering). The first sheets of this new topographic survey
(EOTR, Unified National Mapping System) were published in 1976. Although the
last sheets were published in 2000, the digital transition and the update started
around 1995; since then the update has been an ongoing process. The cadastral
sheets are available in scales 1:500-1:4,000. The topographic series contains a little
bit more than 4,000 sheets in the base scale.
All topographic maps were classified after WW II (the topographic maps were
easily available between the two world wars). These strict rules made these civil
maps available only for a very limited number of users, but even in the 1980s the
classification was changed to internal use only. When the political system changed
in Hungary at the end of the 1980s, the access to the civil topographic maps became
open. The military topographic maps have been publicly available since 1992
(Papp-V
´
ry
2010
).
The First Cartographic Database
It is not easy to determine what the first digital cartographic database in Hungary
was. In the beginning of the informatics age both the military and civil organisa-
tions of the state cartography were busy with the production and update of new
sheets, and the experts were able to deal with IT research and development to a
small extent only.
Although it is not a real cartographic database, we have to remember the very
first digital product, the digital terrain model (DTM-200) of the
Hungarian Post
