THE PROBLEM OF INSULAR MAPS IN NATIONAL AND REGIONAL ATLASES
ON THE BACKGROUND OF AN INTEGRATING
P.J. Jordan
Austrian Institute of East and Southeast European Studies
peter.jordan@univie.ac.at
Insular
maps in the sense of maps on which only a selected area is mapped in full or of
maps on which detail does not extend over the whole map face are frequent and
even the preferred mode of representation in national and regional atlases.
This is understandable, since national and regional atlases as well as atlases
of large-scale regions (1) focus on a state or a region with the intention to
highlight it and (2) wish to avoid as much as possible comparable data
collection also for adjacent areas of neighbouring countries or regions, which
can be rather tiresome, even if only a small part of this neighbour country or
region is shown on the map face. The rendering of adjacent areas may (3) also
urge the involvement of experts from these other countries or regions or may
(4) even have political implications in some very specific cases.
Insular
representation on topographic as well as on thematic maps has, however, also a
couple of disadvantages depending on and varying with map themes. The most
obvious is the lack of comparability of the country/region highlighted with its
neighbourhood. This disadvantage is mostly deliberately accepted in exchange
for the benefits mentioned before. There are, however, also disadvantages much
less taken into consideration. A very serious among them is the fact that
insular maps do not reflect the full scope of locational relations of places
nearby the border or in border regions right in the country/region portrayed.
This fact has grown in importance in an integrating
The paper
will hint at this and other problematic aspects of insular representation by
examples of recent national and regional atlases of European countries
differentiating between map themes. It will in this way throw a glance into a
rather grey field in atlas cartography and contribute to a “cook book” for
atlas editors to be conceived in the framework of the ICA Commission on
National and Regional Atlases.