During ICC 2023 in Cape Town, Peter Jordan received the ICA Honorary Fellowship. Below you can read the laudatio by Thomas Schulz:
Dr Peter Jordan was born in 1949 in Hermagor, Carinthia, Austria – where he lives again today after completing his professional career in Vienna a few years ago. As a student of geography and ethnology in Vienna, he achieved his PhD on the topic of «The Problem of International Symbol Standardization in Cartography», supervised by well-known Austrian cartographer Erik Arnberger in 1979.
In his career in Vienna, Peter was responsible as chief editor of several atlases, e.g. the «Atlas of the Danubian Countries» under Josef Breu; the «Resources and Environment, World Atlas» (1994–1998) and for over 25 years (1989–2014) as editor-in-chief of the monumental map series «Atlas of Eastern and Southeastern Europe», for which he developed the concept and which he presented several times to us at the International Cartographic Conferences.
Early in his scientific life, also influenced by his origin in Carinthia and atlas work on areas with great linguistic diversity, Peter devoted himself to toponomastic questions and developed into an internationally recognized expert in this field. Amongst many other publications, the Austrian place-name data base and his work on «The politics and poetics of toponymy, identity and place in multilingual areas. A comparative study of Carinthia (Austria) and the Těšín area (Czechia)» can be mentioned here as examples and achievements. Together with Paul Woodman, he is responsible for the toponymic book series «Name & Place. Contributions to Toponymic Literature and Research, which has so far produced 8 published volumes.
Peter has joint the ICA family early with his first visit to an ICC in Budapest, in 1989. After serving as Vice-Chair for many years, Peter took over and steered the ICA Atlas Commission from 2007–2015. Later on, from 2015–2023 (today), he was then the ICA-Chair of the joint ICA/IGU Commission on Toponymy. At the same time, he had various other functions in the field of Toponomy, e.g. as Chair of the Austrian Board on Geographical Names (2007–2017) or in the UNGEGN Working Group on Exonyms (2006–2017). Peter Jordan is also currently Vice-President of the International Council of Onomastic Sciences (ICOS).
In addition to his scientific work, his numerous events and publications in the fields of atlas cartography and toponymy, which he realised during all these times, it is to his great credit that he has not only maintained, but further developed a close and fruitful relation with our sister society, the IGU, on these topics, which is so important for the ICA.
Given Peter Jordan’s long-time and significant contribution to the discipline of cartography and the ICA community, the ICA is honoured to recognize him with the ICA Honorary Fellowship award.
