Description

This large highly decorative map of the kingdom of Bohemia was made entirely in Czech language in the 1870s in the time of the Czech national revival. The map was first printed in 1869, in the time after the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867, when the Czech crown did not became equal to the other two counties, and amid the Czech national revival, with a goal to strengthen the national identity and preserve the local language and history in printed forms.

This is an enlarged version, with an in-set map of Prague, and updated information. Correction and new symbols have been added to the legend. A thick red line inside the borders of the Bohemian kingdom on our map, not printed in the previous version, marks the division between the German and Czech inhabited areas.

Josef Erben – The Pioneer of the Czech Cartographic Terminology

The author Josef Erben (1830-1908) started his career as a gymnasium professor, worked between 1862-1875 as a docent  for statistics at the polytechnical institute and from 1865 as the curator of the map department of maps in the National Museum. In 1870, Erben was promoted to the director of the statistic office of the city of Prague, where he remained until his death. He was well connected with large contemporary cartographic and geographic centers, such as Paris and London. J

osef Erben’s most remarkable woks are detailed maps in Czech language, based on the latest surveys and statistic data. For that Erben had to invent contemporary terminology in his native language, as the maps of Bohemia until then were printed in German language.

Erben’s terminology was highly influential on other Slavic countries, such as Slovenia, which were at the time amid their national revival. They used his newly invented Slavic terms as the basis for their own terminology.

References: OCLC 494797869, 1177058444, 921704981. David Rumsey Map Collection (11758.000).