Invitation to the 18th ICA Conference on Digital Approaches to Cartographic Heritage

The ICA Commission on Cartographic Heritage into the Digital, continuing the tradition of its annual Cartoheritage Conferences since 2006, is pleased to invite you at the 18th ICA Conference on Digital Approaches to Cartographic Heritage in Bologna, 23-25 October 2024 – in partnership with the the University of Bologna, Department of Civil, Chemical, Environmental and Materials Engineering (DICAM), supported by the MAGIC – Map & Geoinformation Curators Group.

Call for Papers

The Programme will be organised in thematic sessions dedicated to issues relevant to the subjects usually treated in the Conferences of the ICA Cartoheritage Commission, according to its Terms of Reference (2023-2027).

Possible topics include but are not limited to:

Digitisation – Georeference.
Content analysis in terms of geometry and thematics of cartodiversity.
Landscape change studies based on map-archival sources.
Visualisation of Cartoheritage, including thematic portals.
Interconnection of cartographic archival sources, especially map and textual data.
Historical terrestrial and aerial photography, including photo-related post-cards and relevant material – cartographic parametrisation.
Cartoheritage web providing issues.
Interaction of cartoheritage with map and geoinformation curatorship of cartodiversity.
Development of cartoheritage as a cultural issue, within the context of GLAM, addressed to education and to the general public.
Geographic affinities with Cartoheritage.
Cartoheritage and Digital Humanities.
Other relevant issues of the Cartoheritage ecosystem.

The presented papers are published in the Conference Proceedings (ISSN-2459-3893) available in digital form during the Conference.

For your participation in the conference, please fill and submit online your participation form.

For abstract submission, please fill and submit online the paper title & abstract form (Deadline: 30 April 2024)

For more information about the conference please visit cartography.web.auth.gr/ICA-Heritage/Bologna2024.

Tag: cfp, Greece

President’s Blog: ICA as an Organization of Organizations

The International Cartographic Association is an organization of organizations. It is built upon its members, consisting of National Members and Affiliate Members.

What are members?

National Members are those national cartographic or geographical information organisations, national mapping and cadastral institutions, or coordinating national cartographic committees who wish to represent their nation as a member in ICA. Affiliate Members are organisations, institutions or companies wishing to support the mission and activities of the International Cartographic Association.

ICA has a long list of active members, which can be found at icaci.org/national-members and icaci.org/affiliate-members. Membership comes with a lot of benefits, the most important one as being an active and driving part of the mission, aims and scope of the world of cartography! Details about this can be found on icaci.org/membership-types.

What members do

It is important for ICA that our members flourish. Only if our members are strong, ICA can be a strong global voice for cartography. As the world is changing, the role of societies, institutions and associations is changing as well. In some of our member countries the representation of the national cartographic community might be decreasing, limited or changing. I want to therefore highlight from time to time some best practices and selected successful activities some of our members are pursuing. As I had the opportunity to participate in three recent events let me describe activities of the British Cartographic Society, the German Cartographic Society and the Hellenic (Greek) Cartographic Society as examples.

British Cartographic Society

On 20. September 2023 the British Cartographic Society (BCS) celebrated 60 years during their annual conference at Cambridge, UK. BCS has developed since its foundation 1963 a wide range of activities. To name a few highlights I want to mention publications, such as The Cartographic Journal as well as the magazine “Maplines”. To give map curators a home BCS is also providing a periodical newsletter called “Cartographitti”. BCS has also developed a variety of awards for excellence in cartography, which are presented at the annual conferences. Those awards include entries for best map, printed maps, electronic maps, thematic maps, use of Ordnance Survey Data and 3D cartography as well as the Henry Johns Award for the most outstanding article published in the Cartographic Journal. On their website BCS provides also resources for education, including free data, software links and online support sites. Also, annual conferences are organized as well as so called “Tea Time Talks”, giving the members several opportunities to stay connected. It should be mentioned as well, that BCS has always been a key member of the International Cartographic Association, providing beneath two presidents (Deny Thackwell 1964-1968, Michael Wood 1995-1999) several Vice-Presidents, Commission Chairs and Map Enthusiasts!

During the celebrations of the 60^th Anniversary I had the opportunity to address the members as well as hand over one of the BCS awards for excellence in cartography as well as hand over an ICA Map Exhibition Award Winner from ICC 2023.

Former SG David Fairbairn and former VP David Forrest enjoying the festive celebrations of the 60th Anniversary of BCS

Georg Gartner handing over the Stanfords Award to Luke Harvey (Harvey Maps) for the Map “Wales Coast Path”

Georg Gartner handing over the Certificate for the 2nd place of the International Cartographic Exhibition at ICC 2023 in the category “Map on Panel” for the entry “The World – Great Discoveries”

German Cartographic Society

Cover of Kartographische Nachrichten

The German Cartographic Society (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Kartographie, DGfK) has just recently organised it‘s 71. German Cartographic Conference (Deutscher Kartographentag). The DGfK was founded already in 1950 and has since then developed several activities to promote cartography, such as thematic commissions, regional sections, educational materials, symposia (such as the legendary “Arbeitskurse Niederdollendorf” and the follow-up events called “Symposium Practical Cartography”), or the annual german cartographic conference. DGfK is also awarding outstanding scholars with the very prestigious “Mercator-Medal”. The recently offered “CartoCafé” is a regular series of online lectures and presentations and has found its audience. DGfK is also organizing once a year a “new year event”, which has become a very popular meeting point. It has to be mentioned especially, that the society is running its own journal, the “Kartographische Nachrichten”. DGfK has been always a strong member and supporter of ICA, contributing with ideas, activities and persons to all the ICA activities over decades.

Hellenic Cartographic Society

The Hellenic Cartographic Society was established 1994 in Thessaloniki. Soon the organization developed as the main forum for cartographers in Greece, organizing since 1994 sixteen cartographic conferences all over the country. The society is most successful in reaching out to all main stakeholders of cartography in Greece, including National Agencies, Academia, Practicioners as well as companies. The HCS is a very active partner of ICA, contributing regularly to the Barbara Petchenik Map Competition, supporting actively the FIG/IHO/ICA International Board of Standards of Competence for Hydrographic Surveyors and Nautical Cartogaphers, being the founder and driver of the ICA Commission on Cartographic Heritage into the Digital, which also runs its own journal called “e-perimetron”.

Current President of HCS Chrysoula Boutoura, Former President and ICA Honorary Fellow Evangelos Livieratos and ICA President Georg Gartner at the Hellenic Cartographic Conference in Athens, November 2023

Prof Evangelos Livieratos receiving a honourable professorship of University of Western Attica during the Hellenic Cartographic Conference November 2023

Category: Member News, President's Blog

Tag: British Cartographic Society, German Cartographic Society, Germany, Greece, Hellenic Cartographic Society, United Kingdom

President’s Blog #13g: Nine prestigious ICA Awards presented at the 30th ICC

Dear ICA Colleagues,

It is a long and good tradition to also present a number of prestigious ICA Awards at every biennial International Cartographic Conferences in recognition of special contributions to the ICA and outstanding contributions to the field and science of cartography. ICA knows three kinds of awards – the Carl Mannerfelt Gold Medal (named after the founder of ICA), the Honorary Fellowship and a Diploma for outstanding services to ICA. The Executive Committee decides on the awards on the basis of a recommendation and assessment by the Committee for the Selection of Award Recipients of the ICA.

During two festive award ceremonies within the opening and closing ceremony of the 30^th International Cartographic Conference, altogether nine ICA awards were presented and handed over by ICA President Tim Trainor to the recipients from six countries.

During the opening ceremony, ICA Honorary Fellows Ulrich Freitag (Germany) and Alan MacEachran (United States) received the ICA’s highest and rarely presented award, the Carl Mannerfelt Gold Medal, for their significant contributions of an original nature to the field and science of cartography.

During the closing ceremony, Georg Gartner (Austria, former ICA President), Lysandros Tsoulos (Greece) and Vladimir Tikunov (Russia) were awarded an ICA Honorary Fellowship, including a bronze medal, as cartographers of international reputation who have made a special contribution to the ICA. Read the laudatios and see pictures of the ICA award winners here.

During the closing ceremony, also four ICA Diplomas for outstanding services to ICA were given to Paola Zamperlin, Margherita Azzari, Gilberto Fumarola (all Italy, local organizers of the 30^th ICC in Florence) and Manuela Schmidt (long-time ICA webmaster).

The ICA Executive Committee warmly congratulates all the award winners and thanks them for their invaluable and long service to our Association and the cartographic community!

– Thomas Schulz
Secretary General & Treasurer ICA

Category: President's Blog

Tag: Austria, Carl Mannerfelt Gold Medal, Germany, Greece, ICA awards, ICA diplomas, ICA Honorary Fellowship, ICC2021, Italy, Russia, United States

Honorary Fellowship for Evangelos Livieratos

During ICC 2019, Evangelos Livieratos received the ICA Honorary Fellowship. Below you can read Georg Gartner‘s laudation:

For me it is a real honor and pleasure to address Prof Evangelos Livieratos on the occasion on awarding the Honorary fellowship of the International Cartographic Association. Such an award should be given to a cartographer of international reputation who has made special contributions to ICA.
All of those criteria are more than appropriately applicable to Prof Evangelos Livieratos.
He is a cartographer in its core sense, understanding maps and cartography as a fundamental instrument of human mankind, bridging knowledge, skills, methods and knowledge from engineering to humanities.
He has undoubted international reputation. He has shaped our understanding and knowledge of “how we can see the maps of the past with the eyes of today” on an international stage.
And he has made numerous special contributions to ICA, allowing the organization to gain profile, benefit from his enthusiasm and capacities and establishing topics through a commission, publications and networks.
Born 1948 in Greece, he demonstrated his visionary interest beyond close domain borders. He graduated from surveying engineering at the National Technical University Athens, received a doctoral degree there as well as a Dr. phil. from Uppsala University in Sweden. He also did a docent dissertation at NTUA and moved his interests from geodesy to cartography to combine engineering and humanities oriented scientific thinking. Several fellowships followed, including such to the Smithsonian Institute, the Humboldt Foundation or from NSF.
In his professional endeavours he contributed heavily to put the Aristotle University on the “international map of leading cartographic institutions”. He helped to found the Hellenic cartographic society, introducing national cartographic conferences in Greece and to found the national center for maps and cartographic heritage. As a career achievement with reference to the history of Greek cartography and of the Modern Greek Enlightenment he refers to the discovery of the existence of two versions of Rigas Velestinlis monumental Charta of Greece, which was highly recognized. This was very much in line with his core activities in geospatial sciences and engineering, particularly in mapping, as his long- lasting interest for arts and humanities offered the grounds for developing a line of thought converging to cartographic heritage, a field coupling the historic and cultural heritage of maps and mapping with the so far integration into the dominant digital mainstream. The foundation of the open access journal e-perimetron is an important element of these activities as well as his numerous efforts as teacher, mentor, scientist and organisator. He serves not only the domain of cartography and cartographic academic institutions but also in entities on organizing higher education in general as well as serving the society as minister of environment, energy and climate change of the Greek government.
In respect to activities in relation to ICA he was active participant and discussant in several ICA activities, such as ICCs. He was chair of the WG Digital Technologies in Cartographic Heritage (2005–2007), Chair of the ICA Commission on Digital Technologies in Cartographic Heritage (2007–2015) and ICA Commission on Cartographic Heritage into the Digital (2015–2019). He was an active supporter of the UN-endorsed International Map Year and a long- standing Greek National Delegate to ICA.
In referring to his vision I am pleased to cite him as follows:
“His strong vision for 21st century is a creative rapprochement of engineering with humanities, and vice-versa, designed the rapprochement to be open-minded, tolerant, pluralist, extrovert, fresh and attractive in order to develop composite common areas of thinking, study, research and scientific growth for the benefit of both, humanities and engineering, in a world embedded more and more into the digital manifold.“
To me, this is both, a guideline for many of our activities in cartography as well as a template for scientists in general, that we need to look beyond discipline borders and that we should embed what we do in a bigger picture.
I have found Prof. Evangelos Livieratos as an outstanding scientist, teacher, cartographer, friend.
My sincere congratulations to what I find a more than deserved award for an outstanding person!

Category: Cartographic Heritage into the Digital, Commission News, General News

Tag: awards, Greece, ICA Honorary Fellowship

ICA Awards Ceremony at ICC2019

In the ICA Awards Ceremony at ICC2019, the following awards were presented in recognition of contributions to the ICA.

From left to right: Evangelos Livieratos, Miljenko Lapaine, Takashi Morita

ICA Honorary Fellowship

The ICA Honorary Fellowship is for cartographers of international reputation who have made special contribution to the ICA. It includes a bronze medal.

Evangelos Livieratos, Greece
- Active participant and discussant in several ICA activities, such as ICCs
- Chair of the WG Digital Technologies in Cartographic Heritage (2005–2007)
- Chair of the ICA Commission on Digital Technologies in Cartographic Heritage (2007–2015) and ICA Commission on Cartographic Heritage into the Digital (2015–2019)
- Founder of e-Perimetron
- Active supporter of the International Map Year
- Greek National Delegate to ICA
Miljenko Lapaine, Croatia
- Participation in all International Cartographic Conferences since 1989
- Chair of the ICA Map Projections Commission (2011–2019)
- Vice-Chair of the ICA Map Projections Commission (2019–2023)
- Led the development and editing of the 2017 book Choosing a Map Projection for the ICA
- Active supporter of the International Map Year
- Croatian National Delegate to ICA

Diplomas for outstanding services to ICA

The Diplomas for outstanding services to ICA are for colleagues who have made special contribution to the ICA as commission officers or conference organizers.

Takashi Morita, Japan
- Member of the ICA Commission on Theoretical Cartography
- Vice-President of ICA (1999–2003)
- Chair of the ICA Commission on Ubiquitous Mapping (2003–2011)
- Chair of Local Organizing Committee for ICC2019
- President of Japan Cartographers Association (JCA)
- Chair of the National Committee for Cartography, Science Council of Japan

Congratulations to all awardees!

Category: Cartographic Heritage into the Digital, Commission News, Map Projections, Ubiquitous Mapping

Tag: awards, Croatia, Diploma for outstanding services to ICA, Greece, ICA Honorary Fellowship, ICC2019, International Map Year, Japan

Invitation to the 14th ICA Conference on Digital Approaches to Cartographic Heritage

The Commission on Cartographic Heritage into the Digital, continuing the tradition of its annual Cartoheritage Conferences, since 2006, is organising the 14th Conference Digital Approaches to Cartographic Heritage (ICA DACH) in Thessaloniki, Greece, 8‒10 May 2019, in partnership with the AUTH ‒ Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, supported by the MAGIC ‒ Map & Geoinformation Curators Group.

The programme is organised in thematic sessions dedicated to issues relevant to the subjects usually treated in the Conferences of the ICA Cartoheritage Commission, according to its Terms of Reference (2015‒2019) and the topics treated by its working units. This is the second ICA DACH Conference with a special interest reserved to the contribution of Cartoheritage to Digital Humanities:

Digitisation ‒ Georeference
Content analysis in terms of geometry and thematics of cartodiversity
Landscape change studies based on map-archival sources
Visualisation of Cartoheritage, including thematic portals
Interconnection of cartographic archival sources, especially map and textual data
Historical terrestrial and aerial photography, including photo-related post-cards and relevant material ‒ cartographic parametrisation
Cartoheritage web providing issues
Interaction of cartoheritage with map and geoinformation curatorship of cartodiversity
Development of cartoheritage as a cultural issue, within the context of GLAM, addressed to education and to the general public
Geographic affinities with Cartoheritage
Cartoheritage and Digital Humanities
Other relevant issues of the Cartoheritage ecosystem

The presented papers will be published in the conference proceedings (ISSN-2459-3893) available in digital form during the conference (see the Madrid 2018, Venice 2017 and Riga 2016 proceedings).

The conference is kindly hosted by the AUTH Library & Information Centre and by the Museum of Byzantine Culture of Thessaloniki (see venues). The conference board is advising and implementing the overall organisation.

For more information about the conference please visit cartography.web.auth.gr/ICA-Heritage/Thessaloniki2019.

Category: Cartographic Heritage into the Digital, Commission News

Tag: Greece

Review of the 10th Conference on Digital Approaches to Cartographic Heritage, Corfu, 27–29 May 2015

The 10th Jubilee Conference of the ICA Commission on Digital Technologies in Cartographic Heritage marked with many references on the International Map Year 2015–2016 successfully took place in Corfu. It was attended by 173 participants from 22 countries including Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Greece, Hungary, Hong Kong-China, Indonesia, Israel, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia, Spain, Switzerland, United Kingdom, United States, with many studends among them.

The participants of the Corfu 2015 Cartoheritage Conference

The conference was preceded by the intensive workshop “Georeference for ‘non-experts’“, especially designed for participants coming from humanities, map-curatorship and map-archiving, attended by 26 participants from 12 countries: Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Hong Kong-China, Greece, Latvia, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia, Slovenia and United States.

Participants of the intensive tutorial "Georeferencing for 'non-experts'"

Participants of the intensive tutorial “Georeference for ‘non-experts'”

For more on the conference and the workshop, please see the programme and the tutorial page.

– Evangelos Livieratos,
Chair of the ICA Commission on Digital Technologies in Cartographic Heritage

Category: Cartographic Heritage into the Digital, Commission News

Tag: Greece

Updates by the Commission on Digital Technologies in Cartographic Heritage

Cover of e-Perimetron, Vol.10, No.1 (2015)

The new issue of e-Perimetron is now available at e-perimetron.org. It contains the following papers:

E. Kiss, Zs. Ungvári, P. Fulajtár: Digital Map Collection Project at the National Széchényi Library
R. Roset, V. Pascual, C. Montaner: From Gazetteer to Bounding Box: Using SDI Standards to Build a Geoportal for Ancient Maps in Catalonia
M. Ballarin, C. Balletti, C. Gottardi: Automatic Systems for Digitizing Historical Maps
V. Tsioukas, A. Koussoulakou, T. Jancsó: Falling into Place: Orientation and Viewing of Past Cityscapes in 3D Space
(Research Note) A. Pődör: Experiment of Involving Students in Preserving Geographical Names Appearing on Historical Maps

The 10th Jubilee Conference and Workshop will take place in Corfu, 27–29 May 2015. Please find all details on the conference website.

More news can be found on the commission website.

Category: Cartographic Heritage into the Digital, Commission News

Tag: e-Perimetron, Greece

Announcement of the 10th Jubilee Workshop on Digital Approaches to Cartographic Heritage

The ICA Commission on Digital Technologies in Cartographic Heritage announces its 10^th Jubilee Workshop on Digital Approaches to Cartographic Heritage to be held at Corfu, Greece, on 27–29 May 2015 hosted by the History Department of the Ionian University, a supporting institution of our commission.

The central building of the University,
Ionian Academy, 1824

The Historical Archives of Corfu/General State Archives of Greece, Old Fortress, 1545–1555

The venues of the workshop are the Aula Magna of the Ionian University (at the historic building of the Ionian Academy, 1824) and the Corfu Historical Archives / General State Archives of Greece (at the Old Fortress, 1545–1555).

Please find more information on the workshop’s website, which is continuously updated: http://xeee.web.auth.gr/ICA-Heritage/Corfu_2015.htm

Please feel free to forward the workshop announcement. I wish to see you all in Corfu in late Spring 2015,

– Evangelos Livieratos
Chair of the ICA Commission on Digital Technologies in Cartographic Heritage

Category: Cartographic Heritage into the Digital, Commission News

Tag: Greece

Evangelos Livieratos is new Greek minister

ICA commission chair Evangelos Livieratos has been appointed Greek Minister of Environment, Energy and Climate Change in the new Greek government!

He has been a Professor of Higher Geodesy and Cartography at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki with several published articles on cartography in international journals.

Category: Cartographic Heritage into the Digital, General News

Tag: breaking news, Greece