Which old maps are the most detailed. Download old maps. General surveying plans

They are a source of invaluable information in a wide variety of search industries. They are invaluable for those who practice metal search, genealogy and the search for their pedigree, for ethnographers, archaeologists, tourists and many other activities. But the study of maps and the collection of information about them causes many difficulties and questions, especially for "beginners" in this business. In this article we will try to answer some of them.

The principle of studying old maps is simple: you need to find as many of them as possible for the study area and compare with the corresponding modern topographic maps to identify any changes. These days, you don't have to go to a library or archive looking for old maps. Electronic copies of most topographic maps can be found in various electronic libraries and specialized cartographic sites. But sometimes finding an old map is a rather difficult task, especially if you are looking for detailed maps, for example, maps of counties on a scale of 1 or 2 versts in English inches.

Also, you can not bother yourself with the search for the region you need, just look at the article where we have painted most of the known maps for the entire territory of Russia, as well as Ukraine, Belarus and other CIS and Baltic countries.

What do you need to know when starting to search for maps?

Before you start looking for maps of the territory you are studying, you need to know that:

Start by exploring the area of ​​interest by looking at small-scale maps such as:

1. Atlas of the Russian Empire in 1792.
2. Geographical Atlas of the Russian Empire, 1820-1827.
3. A detailed atlas of the Russian Empire with plans of the main cities of 1871 and others.

If, after reading the historical information about the province, you could not establish which county the investigated territory belongs to, then by superimposing the above maps on modern ones, you can always find out.

Now, after we have found out which county and province the studied territory was part of, we can start looking for detailed maps.

We also recommend that you read these articles: and, which will help you in more detail and accurately understand the scale and description of the maps. But if you find it difficult to independently determine the square you need, then try to find it in our article

What are the old cards?

During the 19th century, topographic surveys of almost the entire territory of the European part of the Russian Empire were carried out, based on the results of which detailed topographic maps were compiled, which are best suited for your research. Finding such old maps will not cause difficulties, since a huge number of Internet sites sell them or give the right to download them for free. Also, a number of such cards are presented on our website. Let's list some of them.

General surveying plans

The oldest detailed maps are General Surveying Plans. General surveying plans were drawn up on a scale of 1-2 versts in the English inch in the period from 1766 to 1861. During this period, plans were drawn up for 35 provinces. Basically, these are the central regions of our country. The plans were drawn without a single mathematical basis, they lack a grid of coordinates. Therefore, despite their detailed scale, working with these cards is the most difficult, and in some places their quality leaves much to be desired.

Mende Maps

General surveying plans served as the basis for other old maps. These are the so-called Mende maps, named after Lieutenant General Alexander Ivanovich Mende, who led the joint topographic surveys of the land survey department and the corps of military topographers in the period from 1849 to 1866. Based on the filming results, boundary atlases and maps of eight provinces of the Russian Empire were published: Tver, Ryazan, Tambov, Vladimir, Yaroslavl, Simbirsk, Nizhny Novgorod and Penza provinces. as well as the general surveying plans were drawn up on a scale of 1 or 2 versts in the English inch, but unlike them, they have a grid of coordinates and are more accurate.

Military topographic maps

Among the old maps, military topographic maps occupy a special place. It is worth noting that in 19th century Russia, direct field (topographic) surveys were carried out by officers of the Corps of Military Topographers, and the collection, storage and publication of maps was carried out by the Military Topographic Depot. With this procedure, it was possible to achieve systematic topographic surveys built on a scientific basis (on a network of geodetic control points). Therefore, military topographic maps are distinguished by their uniformity, accuracy and detail.

The most famous are the following military topographic maps:

• Two-verst topographic map of Moscow province... It is based on topographic instrumental surveys carried out by officers of the Corps of Military Topographers in 1838-1839 and 1852-1853. The map is published on 40 sheets on a scale of 2 versts in inch.
• Three-verst military topographic map, which covers almost all the provinces of the European part of Russia, with the exception of Moscow and has more than 600 sheets. Despite the fact that the lieutenant general did not participate in the compilation and publication of this map, novice researchers of old maps mistakenly call it the Schubert map.
• 10 verst Schubert map ().
• Strelbitsky's map. In connection with the outdated data of the Schubert map, in the middle of the 19th century there was an urgent need for a more detailed and modern map of the European part of Russia. Therefore, in November 1865, the compilation and engraving of a new special map of the entire European Russia began, already under the editorship of the General Staff of Captain Strelbitsky. The new one was a huge cartographic publication on 152 sheets and covered much more than half of all Europe.

As you may have noticed, there are no detailed Asian part of Russia among the above-mentioned topographic maps. This is due, firstly, to the fact that these territories were poorly populated and studied, and, secondly, they were removed from the Western borders of the Empire and therefore were not of interest to the Military Topographic Depot, the main purpose of which was to provide reliable maps Ministry of War.

Therefore, for many territories of the Asian part of Russia, maps with a scale of 20 versts in an inch or more are the only old maps, such as:

• General map of Western Siberia with the Kyrgyz steppe in 1848
• Map of Tomsk Province 1911

Nevertheless, for some parts of the Asian part of Russia, there are more detailed old maps:

• Road map along the rivers of Western Siberia: Ture, Tobol, Irtysh, Ob and Tom, 1884.
• Detailed map of the Barnaul district of 1835

In addition to the listed topographic maps, which have become widespread on the Internet, there are other old maps that you can use in your work. Such maps were compiled in order to meet the needs of various government organizations: the postal department, provincial statistical bureaus, provincial zemstvos and others. The search for such old maps is especially difficult, since they are not mentioned in all catalogs and reference publications, therefore, most often such maps are found randomly in various historical sources. For example, as applications, old maps are found in some lists of settlements, military surveys and other statistical publications.

An example would be the following old cards:

• Postal map of Asiatic Russia and Siberia, published in 1871 by the postal department.
• , compiled in 1915 by the provincial statistical bureau.
• Maps of the districts of the Samara province, compiled in 1912 by the Samara provincial zemstvo.
• Map of the Petrograd province, compiled in 1916 by the Appraisal Department of the Petrograd Provincial Zemsky Administration.

What can help in finding an old card?

In order to facilitate the search for old maps for the territory you are studying, you need to find out topographic surveys were carried out in this area, in what years they were carried out and what old maps were compiled from their results. The following edition can help you with this:

1872 The publication contains a description of all topographic and cartographic work carried out by the corps of military topographers.

The article describes only general aspects of searching for old maps, but if you have specific questions about working with old maps, visit ours, where we will jointly try to solve your problem!

On our site you can Russian Empire

They are a source of invaluable information. But the study of old maps and their search often causes many difficulties and questions. In this article we will try to answer some of them.

The principle of studying old topographic maps is simple: you need to try to find as many of them as possible for the study area and compare the found old maps with the corresponding modern topographic maps to identify any changes. These days, you don't have to go to a library or archive looking for old maps. Electronic copies of most topographic maps can be easily found in various electronic libraries and websites. But, nevertheless, sometimes finding an old map is quite difficult, especially if you are looking for detailed maps, for example, old maps of counties at a scale of 1 or 2 versts in English inch.

Before you start looking for old maps of the territory you are studying, you need to know that:

1) Topography, a relatively young science. The compilation of detailed topographic maps of the provinces and counties of the Russian Empire began at the beginning of the 19th century. Therefore, you should not waste time looking for detailed topographic maps of the 18th century and earlier.

2) First of all, topographic surveys were carried out on the border territories of the Empire and its densely populated central regions. Therefore, it is very difficult to find old maps of the northern, eastern and other sparsely populated territories of our country.

3) Provinces and regions have undergone significant territorial changes over the centuries. Therefore, it is extremely important to study the history of the area you are investigating, while it is necessary to find an answer to the question: which counties and provinces (regions) did this territory belong to and in what years?

Start by exploring the area of ​​interest by looking at small-scale maps and atlases of the Russian Empire, for example:

If, after reading the historical information about the province, you could not establish which county the investigated territory belongs to, then by superimposing the above maps on modern ones, you can always find out.

Now, after we have found out which county and province the studied territory was part of, we can start looking for detailed maps.

What are the old cards?

During the 19th century, topographic surveys of almost the entire territory of the European part of the Russian Empire were carried out, based on the results of which detailed topographic maps were compiled, which are best suited for your research. Finding such old maps will not cause difficulties, since a huge number of Internet sites sell them or give the right to download them for free. Also, a number of such cards are presented on our website. Let's list some of them.

General surveying plans

The oldest detailed maps are. The general surveying plans were drawn up on a scale of 1-2 versts in the English inch in the period from 1766 to 1861. During this period, plans were drawn up for 35 provinces. Basically, these are the central regions of our country. The plans were drawn without a single mathematical basis, they lack a grid of coordinates. Therefore, despite their detailed scale, working with these cards is the most difficult, and in some places their quality leaves much to be desired.

Mende Maps

General surveying plans served as the basis for other old maps. These are the so-called Mende maps, named after Lieutenant General Alexander Ivanovich Mende, who directed the joint topographic surveys of the land survey department and the corps of military topographers from 1849 to 1866. Based on the filming results, boundary atlases and maps of eight provinces of the Russian Empire were published: Tver, Ryazan, Tambov, Vladimir, Yaroslavl, Simbirsk, Nizhny Novgorod and Penza provinces. Mende's maps, as well as general surveying plans, were drawn up on a scale of 1 or 2 versts in English inch, but unlike them, they have a grid of coordinates and are more accurate.

Military topographic maps

Among the old maps, military topographic maps occupy a special place. It is worth noting that in 19th century Russia, direct field (topographic) surveys were carried out by officers of the Corps of Military Topographers, and the collection, storage and publication of maps was carried out by the Military Topographic Depot. With this procedure, it was possible to achieve systematic topographic surveys built on a scientific basis (on a network of geodetic control points). Therefore, military topographic maps are distinguished by their uniformity, accuracy and detail.

The most famous are the following military topographic maps:

• Two-verst topographic map of Moscow province... The basis is the topographic instrumental surveys of the Moscow province, carried out by officers of the Corps of Military Topographers in 1838-1839 and 1852-1853. The map is published on 40 sheets on a scale of 2 versts in inch.
• Three-verst military topographic map, which covers almost all the provinces of the European part of Russia, with the exception of Moscow and has more than 600 sheets. Despite the fact that the lieutenant general did not participate in the compilation and publication of this map, novice researchers of old maps mistakenly call it the Schubert map.
• 10 verst Schubert map ().
• Strelbitsky's map. In connection with the outdated data of the Schubert map, in the middle of the 19th century there was an urgent need for a more detailed and modern map of the European part of Russia. Therefore, in November 1865, the compilation and engraving of a new special map of the entire European Russia began, already under the editorship of the General Staff of Captain Strelbitsky. The new one was a huge cartographic publication on 152 sheets and covered much more than half of all Europe.

Old maps of the Asian part of Russia

As you may have noticed, there are no detailed old maps of the Asian part of Russia among the above-mentioned topographic maps. This is due, firstly, to the fact that these territories were poorly populated and studied, and, secondly, they were removed from the Western borders of the Empire and therefore were not of interest to the Military Topographic Depot, the main purpose of which was to provide reliable maps Ministry of War.

Therefore, for many territories of the Asian part of Russia, maps with a scale of 20 versts in an inch or more are the only old maps, such as:

• General map of Western Siberia with the Kyrgyz steppe, 1848

Nevertheless, for some parts of the Asian part of Russia, there are more detailed old maps:

• Road map along the rivers of Western Siberia: Ture, Tobol, Irtysh, Ob and Tom, 1884

Other old maps of provinces and counties of the Russian Empire

In addition to the listed topographic maps, which have become widespread on the Internet, there are other old maps that you can use in your work. Such maps were compiled in order to meet the needs of various government organizations: the postal department, provincial statistical bureaus, provincial zemstvos and others. The search for such old maps is especially difficult, since they are not mentioned in all catalogs and reference publications, therefore, most often such maps are found randomly in various historical sources. For example, as applications, old maps are found in some lists of settlements, military surveys and other statistical publications.

An example would be the following old cards:

• Postal map of Asiatic Russia and Siberia, published in 1871 by the postal department.

  1872 The publication contains a description of all topographic and cartographic work carried out by the corps of military topographers.

  On our site you can Russian Empire.

  Good luck with your research!

I think there is no need to tell you how important the cards are in the search for coins and treasures. The success of most events depends on their presence or absence. If in the old days a simple desire to get out into the fields was enough, now the situation has changed radically. All the more or less known tracts, but that there, even completely lost in the forests and steppes, turned out to be quite thoroughly cleaned up for ancient finds.
In order to continue expanding your collection or just to enjoy detecting, you have to show more and more remarkable abilities in the field of finding out-of-the-way places. In this matter, the most important role is played by the cards of the past centuries.

Currently, many of them are available to anyone, but as advertisements say, they are not all the same useful. Yes, this is so, most of them are only suitable for planning trips to knocked out places.

Below we will tell you what cards are, reveal their features and characterize them in terms of their usefulness in business.

General Survey Plan - PGM (1780-1830)

They began to actively create topographic materials even under Peter I, at this time a large number of geographical atlases of the empire were published. During the reign of Catherine II, these works were continued. They, like Peter's, also did not differ in particular accuracy, but, nevertheless, they nevertheless conveyed the necessary and necessary information.

It was under Catherine the Great that the process of mass land surveying began. Its essence was as follows - the entire territory of the country was divided into counties, which, in turn, consisted of the so-called plans of dachas, which were nothing more than plots of owners (allotments) with confirmed rights to them and established boundaries. All of them received numbers; for their deciphering, an additional Economic Note was later issued to the land-surveying plans.
These editions can hardly be called maps, because they are still far from being accurate and look more like drawing diagrams. But still, you can get a lot of useful information from them on the emergence or existence of a particular settlement in those days.

Mende Maps (1849-1866)

These, and later many other maps, were named after the people who made the greatest contribution to their development and creation. All of them were based on and had the basis of editions created under Catherine and Paul I, it was on these beginnings that further development was carried out, so necessary, in primarily military, modern maps.
The new realities of that time revealed the need to create more accurate and detailed maps than the existing 40-verst military-road editions. Taking the PGM as a basis and conducting large-scale cartographic surveys, military topographers under the leadership of A.I. Mende began to create new detailed editions.

In total, two varieties of them were released.:

- one verst, scale 1 inch is equal to 1 verst or 1cm is equal to 420m

- two versts, scale in 1 inch 2 versts or 1 cm 840m.

Such detailed publications appeared in 8 provinces, although the survey of the area was carried out in 21 provinces for 17 years.

Provinces

1 and 2 versts - Tverskaya, Vladimirskaya, Ryazanskaya, Penza, Simbirskaya and Tambovskaya.
1 verst - Nizhny Novgorod and Penza.

Schubert maps (1860-1870)

Under the leadership of F.F.Schubert, who headed the Corps of Military Topographers at the beginning of the 19th century, a 10-verst map of the Western part of the Russian Empire on 60 sheets was created. But it, like the borderline 4 and 5 versts, turned out to be not very convenient, so soon work began on another one.
The new map - three-layout was first created under the leadership of Major General P.A.Tuchkov (until 1851), and then the work continued with the participation of Schubert. The period of its creation covers the second half of the 19th century, starting in 1846.
Scale - in 1 inch 3 versts or 1260m in 1cm.

The main part of the work was done before 1863 (435 sheets), further work was not suspended (in 1886 - 508 sheets), but basically it was reduced to supplementing and clarifying the previous editions.
They collected cartographic material for all the provinces of the European part of the empire (with the exception of Moscow) and part of the adjacent territories (Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova and the Baltic states).
This map is distinguished by good detail with the display of the type of relief and the nature of the terrain: forest, swamp, rivers and streams, bridges, crossings, etc. All significant objects are located on it, ranging from schemes of cities to villages with an indication of the number of courtyards, churches, mills, field and forest roads.

When using these materials, it is worth remembering two important features:

1) The accuracy of the designation of various objects has some error, for example, for the most significant it can be from 50 to 200m, for others - from 100 to 500m, and sometimes even more.

2) When designating villages, it was customary to subdivide them by size using a font, the names of large villages (20 or more yards) were written in normal font, small villages and farms in italics.

Strelbitsky's cards

Since 1865 I.A. Strelbitsky, who at that time was part of the military topographic department at the General Staff, was instructed to update and supplement the Special Map of the European part of Russia. Under his leadership, the work continued from 1865 to 1871. The edition consisted of 178 sheets, covering the provinces located in the center of the country, as well as parts of the adjacent western and southern territories.

Scale: 1 inch 10 versts or 1 cm 4200m.

In the future, it was she who served as the basis for the creation of such publications until the middle of the 20th century.

Red army

These cards bear the abbreviated name of the Workers 'and Peasants' Red Army. These works have been published since the 1920s. Of course, for the most part they were based on editions issued before the revolution of 1917 (mainly layouts were used) and covered primarily the Western regions of the country. They were published in the period from 1925 to 1941. Scale - from 250m to 5km.

They were released with a number of additions and improvements, so they were actively used during the Second World War.
These maps are characterized by very clear detail and detail, they show all roads, including the smallest, settlements with an indication of the number of courtyards, well, and other objects of interest from the point of view of military tactics. The vast majority of sheets are made in color, but there are also black and white versions.
Their usefulness is undoubtedly high, in view of the fact that many villages disappeared immediately or some time after the end of the war.

General Staff

From the name it is clear that they were produced for military needs, although they were also used by other services, for example, geodetic, topographic, geological, etc. These include editions released after the Second World War, which are again improved and revised previous maps. They all have the same shape - the territory is divided into sheets, each of them, in turn, is divided into squares.
Initially, they were considered secret and it was almost impossible to get them in Soviet times. Now, many (not all) of them are available for use.
Taking into account the fact that the General Staff has a significantly smaller error in relation to the coordinate grid, it makes sense to use them (in the absence of old ones) to search for tracts and plan travel routes.

The scale of such maps is very diverse, ranging from 500 meters to 10 kilometers.

In addition to the above cards, of course, there are many other interesting ones. For example, in the 19th century, in many provinces, their own - governor maps were published, and many search engines still use German (KDWR), Polish (WIG) maps, which are essentially redrawn Russian layouts.

All maps can be used literally, so to speak, but if you can at least find something on the Soviet General Staff (at least villages that existed after the war), then on milestones it is much more difficult to do this, they require binding to the area. This is done using special programs, and then the processed materials are loaded into the navigator.

Filming of the area taken tens and even hundreds of years ago is the history of our country. They will provide invaluable help not only to amateurs, but also to those who just love to travel, explore their land, its origin and development, and simply those who simply want to know the origin of their kind.

This is a kind of time machine, and therefore a source of invaluable information. In working with old topographic maps, the main principle of the study is undoubtedly the comparative one. As many old maps of the study area as possible are compared with the corresponding topographic maps of the present day in order to identify any changes. To find in our time, in the era of internetization, old maps are no longer an urgent need to rush headlong into libraries and archives - the electronic version of most of them can be seen on various Internet sites. And, nevertheless, finding detailed maps, for example, old maps of counties on a scale of 1 verst in English inch, can be a very difficult task. Therefore, in the search, and in the very process of studying maps, various questions often arise. The purpose of this article is to highlight the most common ones.

What is important to know before looking for old maps?

1. Do not try to find detailed topographic maps of the counties and provinces of the Russian Empire dating from the 18th century or earlier. Such maps began to be drawn only at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Topography, in principle, is considered a relatively young science.

2. Due to the fact that topographic surveys first of all began to be carried out in the border territories and densely populated areas of the central regions of the Empire, it is not surprising that it will be extremely difficult to find old maps of the eastern or northern territories, as well as sparsely populated ones.

3. Over the centuries, the provinces and regions have undergone significant territorial changes. Therefore, it will be very useful to study the history of the area under study (here it is important to find out: when and in which provinces and counties it was included). For a start, it is better to familiarize yourself with small-scale atlases and maps of the Russian Empire. The best option would be to opt for the Atlas of the Russian Empire (dated 1792), the Geographical Atlas of the Russian Empire (compiled in 1820-1827) and the Detailed Atlas of the Russian Empire with plans of the main cities (published in 1871). Read the historical background about the province. If, after that, doubts remain as to which of the counties this or that territory should be attributed to, compare the above and modern maps by overlaying them.

What are the types of old cards?

In the 19th century, topographic surveys became widespread in the Russian Empire, and by the end of the century, almost all of its European part was displayed on detailed topographic maps. For research, such maps are an indispensable tool. There are a huge number of sites on the Internet that make it possible to purchase these (and many others) cards both on a paid and free basis. General surveying plans are the oldest among them.