The Map collection at Charles University was created at the same time as the Geographical Institute at Charles University’s Faculty of Arts in 1891. In June 1920, the Institute and the collection were integrated under the new Faculty of Science. In November of that year, following intensive preparations by the Academic Board headed by Prof. Václav Švambera, the collection gained the status of the “State Map Collection”. It reported directly to the Ministry of Education and obtained large government grants for acquisitions. One of the reasons for establishing the organisation was to obtain large collection from the War Archives in Vienna. Prof. Karel Kuchař, who was the most important Czech historical cartographer, led the Map collection in the years 1945-1973. After World War II, the collection acquired a number of confiscated materials from German university and castle’s libraries. The National Museum’s and Czech National Library’s map collections also became a part of the collection. The State Map Collection maintained its leading position up until 1952, when the communist government “reorganised” the sciences and arts and the collection was integrated into the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences. There the collection remained from 1953 until 1993. In that year, the Academy of Sciences’ Geographical Institute was dissolved and the collection was returned to the original owner. The administrators of the collection had managed to process part of the collection into card catalogues. As the collection staff was small, no steps could be made to systematically document and provide access to the collection. There wasn’t enough funding to restore, catalogue and digitise the collection. As a result, it is currently very difficult to navigate the collection. Now a fundamental change can take place in connection with the TEMAP project. The project will also enable further development of the on-line database the Geographical Bibliography of the Czech Republic.

The collection is composed of approximately 130,000 map sheets, around 3,000 atlases and 60 globes. Approximately 50% of the fund is made up of early prints and manuscripts dating before 1850. This scope and content makes the collection unique not only within the Czech Republic, but also throughout Central Europe. Similar university collections are located in the distant cities of Paris and Oslo. Maps from atlases from the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries can probably be declared as the most beautiful cartographic works. They are connected to the names of cartographic giants like Mercator, Ortelius, Blaeu, Delisle, Homann, Seutter. There are also maps created by the representative of cartography in Czech Lands: Klaudyan, Aretin, Criginger, Vogt, Müller. The collection is an essential national cultural landmark, gathering important Central European cartographic documents from many previous generations over the past 500 years.

Map Collection 2013

Map collection 1931