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The TMK and the 'Chromo-Topografische kaart 1:25.000' were originally meant for military use in wars and seemed to be kept under vigilant secrecy until 1887. However that is not totally true. The present Director of the TDN noted that the TMK of 1864 was a military operation, but the maps were mainly sold to private people. Untill 1887 it seems to have been rather troublesome for army-officers to get hold of a copy of the maps! And till 1923 a very tedious, intricate procedure was introduced to order copies. When the TDN opened a special office for map-distribution part of this trouble was solved for civilians. Since WW II the TDN tries to make the production of civilian maps self-sufficient. Fortunately the TDN has been able to keep the maps reasonably priced. (16A) The advent of the atlases may help them to keep producing for the civilian market.
Non-military use of topographic maps is tentatively described by N.J. Bakker of the TDN. He produced the following table to indicate the kind of non-military use concluding that of total production 50 % is taken up for professional use (maybe better indicated as "institutional use") and 50 % for private use, though part of the latter may also be for professional use.:
Orders and bought maps after user-category, january/february 1990
user orders amount of maps taken
State/province/municipality agencies 12 % 16 % utilities 2 % 4 % other government agencies 7 % 7 % private companies 23 % 26 % bookshops (incl. tourist office) 14 % 35 % private persons 42 % 12 %
(data based on a 6-week period and covering only printed maps)
The use of different maps after user-categories
user-category 1:25,000 1:50,000 1:10,000 other number %
state 15,8 % 14,5 % 20,5 % 6,2 % 22,143 14,6 provinces 8,1 % 5,3 % 4,8 % 0,7 % 9,570 6,3 municipalitie 4,8 % 3,0 % 6,5 % 1,7 6,138 4,1 utilities 2,6 % 1,2 % 6,3 % 0,4 % 3,215 2,1 other government org. 5,2 % 3,1 % 6,7 % 0,7 6,343 4,2 architects 0,8 % 0,4 % 1,5 % 0,2 % 1,020 0,7 big companies & inst. 10,4 % 12,1 % 10,3 % 17,9 % 17,728 11,7 other private users 52,4 % 60,3 % 43,5 % 72,3 % 85,341 56,3 amounts per type 83,664 44,146 7,777 15,911 151,498 100,0
The one but last column gives the total amount of maps sold per user-category, the last the division in %.
Bakker further discerns between certain categories of use (general orientation, navigation and route-planning, earth science research and mapping, cultural-historical research and mapping, landscape research, planning, country planning and land development projects, thematic inventories, recreation, education, armchair-use) (16D). One may conclude from this that topographic maps are so much used as base-map or primary research-tool, and are published in so many reports and scientific and educational publications that they permeate society.
In the 1971-catalogue of the exhibition '400 jaar atlas' (400 years of atlases) Cor Koeman wrote in the introduction: "Do we still need atlases and maps today?" (3) Though his contemplation that progressing automation may lead to the stage that the map becomes more or less obsolete is still valid, that age has not been reached yet, at least not in popular cartography. He questions a.o. the lack of uniformity in scale in atlases through the ages, remarking that the International Map 1:1,000,000 and 1:2,500,000 may have uniform scales, but are not really atlases. The present output of uniform, topographic atlases in The Netherlands would have pleased him.
In 1972 Jan Piket typified the users of topographic maps as 'the masses'. Contrary to the users of e.g. geological maps or school-atlases no special group of users could be identified in relation to topographic maps. They could be military or scouting, scientific researcher or tourist, teacher or student (4). The need for topographic maps (older and new ones) could also have been a result of the fact that people in general became conscious of ecology- and landscape-problems.
In an article of 1987 Marijn Bosma identified as the cause for the rise in sales the new lust for large scale topographic information and the rise of the number of special map-shops. At the time only a specially produced 1:100,000 topographic map was available and according to him there was a big demand for the true connaisseurs of large scale information. (11)
According to Günther Schilder in his article 'The History of Cartography: quo vadis?' (15) one has come to the point of view that 19th century topographic maps of The Netherlands give an unsurpassed insight into landuse, habitation and the form of landscapes, especially from the period before the rapid population growth and industrialization (ca. 1880). As not much of the former landscape is unmarred, one needs older maps to restore them to their former beauty. As the topographic maps of the TDN and its forerunners were produced as independent documents and as they are well documented they do not suffer the restrictions of many older maps of which the original purpose may have been lost through the separation of the map and the document(s) it belonged to, thereby preventing for the bigger part misinterpretations.
Before we look at the present hausse of atlas-publishing I'll first parade some earlier or related
projects.
Most chapters which follow are headed by the title of the facsimile, [original year of mapping or
publication],
place
of publication, publishers, and year of publication.
earlier chapter
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