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Dutch thematic maps on the web

Marco van Egmond, Utrecht University Library

© LIBER and author

Is there a God? Nowadays a frequently asked question, but in the 17th century no one doubted His existence. The question was rather how to worship God properly. If it had been up to Jodocus Hondius, the Supreme Being was best served by adherence to the Christian faith. In 1607, this Amsterdam publisher published a pocket version of Mercator's Atlas, the Atlas Minor in which he included a thematic world map representing the spread of the various religions. It is an early chorochromatic map which, by means of symbols or surface colours, indicates the spread of qualitative phenomena. In the title Hondius only mentions Christianity; in the map legend, however, Islam ('Mahumetismus') and Judaism ('Iudaismus') are also mentioned. Christianity is indicated by a cross, Islam by a crescent moon. In addition, the image-worshippers or idolaters (Buddhism, Hinduism and nature worshippers) are indicated by slanted arrows. According to the map legend, all over the world human beings worship God; the true God can be worshipped properly (Christianity) or improperly. False Gods are stars, animals, plants or spirits, either good or evil. The map shows an optimistic view of the spread of Christianity in Africa: for the Christian Empire of Abyssinia is shown as a very large area. An early example of deliberate geopolitics by Hondius. But whether he was aware of the fact that his map is one of the earliest forms of thematic cartography is doubtful however.

Anyway, the map by Hondius has been included onto 100 Thematic Maps, the website recently launched by the Utrecht University Library. By highlighting milestones, the website shows the development of thematic cartography in the Netherlands. Although nowadays it looks as if the whole world has been discovered and there are no 'blank spaces'left, nothing is further from the truth. We may know where the various geographical objects are located, but many of their qualities are still unknown. Thematic maps show this kind of 'attributive information'. In this way, the development of thematic cartography shows milestones in the expanding knowledge of the earth. The recently launched website 100 thematic maps shows the development in the Netherlands: when did we make a beginning with soil mapping, rendering the third dimension, visualizing the composition of the subsoil, or weather observations etc. In what way have these maps been made with respect to content, so as to be suitable for interpretation?

The Kartografisch woordenboek published in 1991 gives the following definition of thematic maps: maps on which the spread, nature and/or quantity of specific (groups of ) phenomena or themes are represented on a topographical base. In the leading work in the field of the history of thematic mapping - Early thematic mapping in the history of cartography - Arthur H. Robinson defines the thematic map as follows: 'In contrast to the general map, the thematic map concentrates on showing the geographical occurrence and variation of a single phenomenon, or at most a very few. Instead of having as its primary function the display of a variety of different features, the pure thematic map focuses on the differences from place to place of one class of feature, that class being the subject or 'theme' of the map.' In other words, thematic maps are scientific products. After all, not the features of perceptible reality are shown, but the interpretations of that reality. Thematic maps are based on systematically arranged perceptions. As a result, they mirror human curiosity about the nature of a great variety of geographical phenomena and their interrelations.

Hundreds of these maps have now been digitized by the Utrecht University Library and put on the Internet. In my lecture, I will draw attention to this website and I will try to put the maps in an international and national perspective. I will briefly deal with, successively, the history of thematic cartography in general, the position of the Dutch thematic cartography seen in the light of that historical development and -finally- the series of digitized maps as they can be admired on the Internet.

I. Thematic cartography in historical perspective
Thematic maps have a relatively short history. According to Wallis & Robinson (1987) the origin of this kind of maps dates back to the late 17th century. Before that time, thematic maps were rarely made, among which are some maps from the Netherlands as the one made by Hondius. Maps of the ocean currents by Athanasius Kircher (Mundus subterranus, 1665) and Eberhard Werner Happel (Mundus Mirabilis, 1687) and the trade wind maps (1686) and maps of the variation of magnetism in the Atlantic Ocean (1701) by Edmond Halley mark the beginning of thematic cartography, according to Wallis & Robinson. The maps by Halley in particular proved to be important scientific documents. Both the wind map ( a flow map) and the map of the variation of magnetism (a so-called isogonic map) became famous almost instantly and were used, revised and copied for a very long time.

Surprisingly enough, this thematic cartographic eruption was not fully continued. In the 18th century Halley's ideas were almost forgotten and only some geological maps received attention. They only produced nominal data which were represented in the map image by means of coloured areas. Only in the early 19th century, when the first results of scientific geographical research were published, did the thematic cartography begin to flourish.
Developments in the natural sciences and statistics, the rise of the census, the industrial revolution and the outbreak of epidemics made thematic mapping of these complex phenomena necessary. A strong wish was felt to gather knowledge about the nature and value of a certain phenomenon relating to the entire state surface. Also the development of the lithograph as a cheaper and quicker alternative to the copperplate contributed to the popularity of the thematic map.

And so it happened that the thematic map was commonly used in the middle of the 19th century. Some international milestones from that time are: Carl Ritter's first thematic 'atlas': Sechs Karten von Europa (1806), Alexander von Humboldt's introduction of the isotherm (1817) and especially the publication of various volumes of Heinrich Berghaus' Physikalischer Atlas between 1838 and 1848. Also worth mentioning are the maps of sociological phenomena from the first half of the 19th century of which the main authors are the Frenchmen Charles Dupin, Andre-Michel Guerry and Charles Joseph Minard, the Belgian Adolphe Quetelet, the Dane Nils Frederik Ravn and the German August Petermann.

Around 1860, all the techniques, which are used nowadays to produce thematic maps (whether analogly or digitally), were already known: data collection, systematic arrangement of data, graphic design as means of communication. During the period 1853-1876, many international statistical conferences contributed to the achievement of a high technical level. So in spite of the rather short history of thematic cartography, the discipline quickly reached a mature status. In the 20th century this culminated in the appearance of all kinds of national atlases.

II. Dutch thematic cartography
How did the Dutch thematic cartography relate to this international development? For an answer to this question, we would best turn to Koeman (1983). In his publication Geschiedenis van de kartografie van Nederland he devotes a whole chapter to the history of thematic cartography in the Low Countries. According to Koeman, from around 1860 onwards the Dutch thematic cartographer could have had a whole repertory of means of visualization at his disposal, thanks to Minard's applied methods of graphic representation. From isoline maps to dot maps and from choropleth maps to diagrams. In Koeman's opinion, Dutch cartographers did not know of the existence of Minard's methods however, but he confesses at the same time that not only the Netherlands were to blame for this lack of knowledge. In the Netherlands, thematic cartography took another century before it came into full bloom. Yet two 'genius' cartographers in the Netherlands carried out pioneering work around 1850: Winand Carel Hugo Staring (1808-1877) and Gregorius Mees (1802-1883). 'Their use of maps and their methods of representation came up to the standards we are used to set nowadays. Against all expectations, this course of development was not continued. Only after 1950 did thematic cartography reach a high level again' Koeman says. In spite of this, the website 100 thematic maps contains a large number of examples from the period 1850-1950, some of them published in the Tijdschrift van het Nederlands Aardrijkskundig Genootschap (Journal of the Dutch Geographical Society). This goes to show that the quality of the thematic maps from this period must not have been that bad.

Of course, also the Dutch thematic cartography has a previous history which dates back to the 16th century. In this respect, Koeman mentions the 'pseudo-scientific' historical geography of Philippus Cluverius and Menso Alting (of whom a map is included on the website), which led to some historical maps. These maps were not copied however, and did not influence the development of thematic cartography. However, maps on water management did have a stimulating effect on this development. Think of polder and river maps, which belong to the oldest Dutch thematic maps. For this category of maps mapping techniques have been applied for the first time in the Netherlands. For instance: on the (also digitized) map of the river Spaarne by Pieter Bruinsz a batymetric contour is drawn: the first use of the isoline in the world.

Besides the maps on water management, land use maps were also published occasionally in that early period, making a distinction between meadows, farmland, orchards, hemp, tobacco and the like. This type of map represents a kind of thematic cartography, although not consciously applied. Conscious application of ideas and theories did not begin until the 19th century when statistics in Europe became a real science. This development can be seen in the Ackersdijck collection, a collection of earliest printed Dutch thematic maps, left to the Utrecht University Library by Jan Ackersdijck (1790-1861), the first professor of General and Dutch statistics. This collection was of great use to us in selecting the maps which were to be digitized for the new website.

Together with the growth of statistics in the Netherlands, more and more administrative data turned up which were used to an increasing extent in the production of thematic maps. In 1827, the first Dutch choropleth map came upon the market in Brussels and in the years 1834-1835 the geological-mineralogical map of the Netherlands was published. In the following decades, material was collected to produce statistics on population, agriculture, industry and trade, later to be used by Staring. His Geologische kaart van Nederland (Geological map of the Netherlands), and, above all, his Schoolkaart Voor De Natuurkunde En De Volksvlijt Van Nederland (School map of the natural sciences and craft industries in the Netherlands) (1860) influenced the school atlases in particular, including Johan Kuyper's Natuur en Staathuishoudkundige atlas van Nederland (Atlas of Physical Science and State Economics in the Netherlands) (1863). Kuyper was a 'loner' who described the Netherlands in thematic maps. The same goes for J.C.A Everwijn with his Historisch-economische atlas (Historical-Economical Atlas) (1912). Together with Mees, Staring and Kuyper, Koeman puts him in the category of 'lonely innovators of the cartography in the Netherlands, because their ideas were hardly copied'.

Summarizing, it may be said that the Dutch thematic cartography in the field of water management was innovative in the 16th and 17th century. The growth of the lithography in 19th century Europe also extended its influence to the Netherlands and resulted in some attractive products,

such as the Waterstaatskaart 1: 50,000 (1864), of which can be said, however, that its influence did not reach beyond the Dutch borders.

III. Thematic-cartographic milestones on the Internet
The website 100 thematic maps shows the development of the thematic cartography, based on Dutch examples, some of which have already been presented above. All maps on the website are accompanied by extensive descriptions and explanations. You may like to know that the maps are not only from the collections of Utrecht University, but that reproductions of maps from the collections of Amsterdam and Leyden are also included, by kind permission of the University libraries of these cities, allowing an optimal demonstration of the milestones of the history of Dutch thematic cartography. The maps are presented 'full-image' on the Internet and can be examined in the best possible way by means of a widely applicable user interface. It is possible to zoom in to the smallest details by means of an easy to download plug-in. Another option is to browse the collection. The search menu offers you the option to search entries such as publisher, title, place of publication etc. In this way, researchers and other users of, usually old, maps will have easy access to high-quality and user-friendly cartographic instruments. In this way, Utrecht University Library also wishes to promote its cultural heritage. Additional advantages are that the often vulnerable maps can be consulted 'in the virtual world' and are thus protected from unnecessary deterioration and theft.

The digitized collection of the hundred most important thematic maps about the Netherlands or produced within its borders, is meant as study material for lectures in (historical) cartography. Besides, there is of course an overlap with Earth Sciences, History of Science and the development of visualization techniques in general.

The 100 thematic maps have been selected by staff of the reseach programme Explokart (Geo Information cluster) of the Utrecht Faculty of Geosciences. The criterion was that the maps had to be produced in the Netherlands or in its former overseas territories. Furthermore, they had to take up an important position in the development of thematic cartography, or in other words be representative of certain new developments.

As for the range of thematic maps, a convenient four-part division can be made, which can be divided again into subcaterogies. From each of these four categories, examples can be found on the website. Two examples from each category will be briefly touched upon here:
  1. maps of the physical world: physical maps (atmosphere, water surface, geology and soil science, relief, vegetation
    An important physical map in the development - also worldwide - of the thematic cartography is without any doubt, the manuscript map of the river Spaarne from 1584 by the land surveyor Pieter Bruinsz. On the map he plotted a line, indicating a depth of almost two metres. The channel for deep draught ships was bounded, as it were, by this batymetric contour, the first ever. It was also the first application of isolines technique. Nowadays millions of weather maps are made worldwide, using the isolines technique.

    A second example in the category of physical maps is the early soil map of the province of Groningen from 1837 by G. Acker Stratingh. This map indicates the spread of soil types. The colours have been added to the map by hand and the remarkable thing is that the colours show a gradual transition. A representation of reality, in which there is, after all, no abrupt transition from one soil type to another. The data on the soil types were collected by Acker Stratingh based on a survey, distributed among all school teachers in the province. In the explanation, suggestions were given on how to identify the soil samples by tasting them!

  2. Maps of humankind and its activities: socio-economic maps (population, cultural aspects, economy, urban and regional planning, health)

    Worth mentioning in the category of socio-economic maps - the most extensive category by the way - is the 1921 development scheme of the city of Utrecht. This beautiful map is made by the municipality of Utrecht under the directorship of L.N. Holsboer, director of the department of Public Works, with H.P Berlage as advisor. Under the Dutch 1901 Housing Act, municipalities had to make development schemes. The Utrecht plan was finished in 1920. To a large extent, the scheme was determined by new means of transportation: roads, an airport and industrial ports. A ring road was drawn around the planned buildings and to prevent traffic going through the city, a second ring road was planned. The fields of fire around the forts were represented by gradations of gray. These fields were well taken advantage of by planning sport fields around them. It is a real 'communication map': the map gives an overview as well as details and in this respect anticipates on the public inquiry procedures which were to be introduced in the environmental planning fifty years later.

    Another relevant socio-economic map is J. Kuyper's map of the population increase and decrease in the Netherlands in the years 1860-1880. This map from 1885 is, as far as known, the first map which indicates the development of the Dutch population. That is to say: the increase and decrease at a given moment in time, compared to a fixed time in the past. On this map, the time in the past is the situation before 1860, which the numbers for 1880 are compared to. The map legend tells us that the population did not increase in all places during those two decades: there are municipalities where the number of population stayed the same (and varied between plus two per cent and minus two per cent compared to 1860), but there are also places where the number of population decreased by ten per cent or more. It is just that the areas concerned are hard to find on the map, because the procedure of indicating increase and decrease by the means of colours, was not used yet. Kuyper said that he took the processing and mapping of the population data from the work by Wagner and Behm. The inset map is interesting as well, because the population density (of 1880) is represented as an isoline map for the first time.

  3. Traffic and transportation maps: infrastructure maps

    A relatively small category within thematic maps is the category of infrastructure maps. A striking example is the 1817 map of transport routes in the Netherlands. This is the 'National Roads Plan' of the Dutch king William I, containing 'routes royales' and 'routes décrétées à construire' (roads to be constructed). The map is drawn by the corps of water management. The roads to be constructed appear to be mainly in the South of the Netherlands and between the two kingdoms joined together. The border between the two kingdoms is not indicated as a provincial border but as a state border. Particularly on the roads in the south, cross lines are drawn at fixed distances: so it can be called a kind of mileage, the first ever to be found. The map not only contains roads to be constructed; also drawn is the route of a 'Canal du Nord projetté'.

    4. A second infrastructure map, made in 1892 by Hendrik Blink, represents the shipping traffic intensity in the Netherlands. Apart from loose maps, maps in books and journals are also an important source for the study and development of thematic cartography. As a journal editor and prolific writer of books, Blink influenced to a large extent the popularization of thematic maps. On this map the volume of the passing ships is indicated by line symbols distinguished by thickness and signature: the numbers next to the water roads refer to a list with their names. The representation in the Zuyder Zee is not quite satisfactory: the circle indicates how much traffic is coming from the water roads off the Zuyder Zee and how it links up with other water roads; it results, however, in wrongly suggesting a route. And the subject of the Zeeland water routes should at least have been treated in the same way as the Zuyder Zee routes. Apart from that, it is a good overview of the most important water roads in relation to shipping movements.

  4. Maps reconstructing a spatial situation in the past: historical maps

    Also small in size is the category of historical maps. This kind of thematic map shows phenomena or developments from the past. An example is the historical map by Arend Fokke Simonsz from 1785. The title speaks for itself: 'The Old Netherlands as it was inhabited by the Batavians, the Frisians and other peoples, according to the best classical writers'. The map is a reconstruction of Dutch territory during the Roman era, based on data provided by Roman authors.

    A final type of historical map is a sheet from the map of Holland, Zeeland and West-Friesland in 1300 from the 'Geschiedkundige atlas van Nederland' (Historical atlas of the Netherlands) by Anton Albert Beekman (1854-1947). As no other, Beekman occupied himself with the detailed reconstruction of the western Netherlands in the Middle Ages, based on old maps and sources. From 1909 to 1938 (publication did not start until 1913) he was both editor and cartographer of all 185 map sheets of the 'Geschiedkundige atlas van Nederland', on which a whole team of scientists - among which the historian P.J. Blok - collaborated. The reconstruction represented here is of Holland, Zeeland and West-Friesland in 1300, with a global classification of soil types (only by the publication of the Soil map 1 : 50,000 after 1960 were these reconstructions to be adjusted to the smallest detail) and an overview of towns, villages and dykes mentioned in sources of that time. This map fragment shows the Groote Waard, an area that was flooded during the 1421 All Saints Flood which left only the Isle of Dordrecht undamaged. Thanks to the source studies of historians, the map is well documented. As such, it is an example of a scrupulous reconstruction, in contrast to broader attempts made before.

Epilogue
The list of the hundred selected maps is a 'flexible' list; new discoveries and interpretations may turn up and lead to new insights which may invite discussion. In this respect, the website - of which the main pages are by now available in English - also plays an important role in education and research.

Apart from the collection of thematic maps, two other collections can be viewed on the Utrecht University Library website of digitized maps. There is an overview of seventy old showpieces from the Faculty of Geosciences map collection. Furthermore, 250 soil maps of Belgium from the collection of the Library of Geosciences are put on the Internet. For this digitizing project the University Library has developed a special production line for storing and cataloguing digitized map material. In the future, new collections will be added to the Utrecht University Library website of digitized maps.

In conclusion, let us now compare a current map of the spread of religion to the 400- years-old map by Hondius. It is obvious that both maps belong to the chorochromatic type, however, the data on the youngest map are clearly better visualized. If Hondius were still alive today, how would he value our current religious world view? Although unhappy with the advancing secularization, he would probably be moderately optimistic. After all, almost all of America and Australia, which was not yet discovered in his days, are christianized (the areas in yellow and orange). On the other hand, Christianity in Abyssinia or Ethiopia has lost considerable ground to Islam (green areas).

In these days, Hondius, probably to his great regret, would have had to show more modesty in putting the country on the map as a Christian nation. And there is no geopolitics that can change that!

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