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In December 1939, shortly after the outbreak of World War II, a new department was established in London: MI9. MI9’s main task was to help Allied soldiers who had been shot down or captured behind enemy lines to escape. The most important tool for such an escape was... Read more

Last January, the Maps and Panoramas Department of the Zurich Central Library acquired, through an antiquarian source, 24 color-lithographed segments on thin glassine paper as well as two polar segments of the extremely rare “Henze’s Globe.” The globe segments appeared between 1885 and 1890 as a free supplement... Read more

Last year, the Emmen Military Airfield donated maps with hand-drawn markings to the swisstopo map collection. The maps offer insights into the history of aviation and illustrate the role the Siegfried Map played in it. – More at: https://www.swisstopo.admin.ch/de/wissen-fakten/geschichte-sammlungen/raum-zeit.detail.news.html/swisstopo-internet/news2023/time-space/emmen.html Read more

In the spring of 2023, the Maps and Panoramas Department of the Zurich Central Library was able to acquire the latest edition of the new large-scale topographic maps for the Central African country of the Republic of Cameroon, which were available for the first time (on the market/in... Read more

In June 2022, the Maps and Panoramas Department of the Zurich Central Library acquired the South American collection of cartography pioneer Robert Helbling (1874–1954) on the secondary market. The collection comprises approximately 200 individual items (including photographs, sketches, original cartographic drawings, hand-colored map prints, and individual pieces of... Read more

Antonio Salamanca created the first north-oriented map of Switzerland. In 1555, it was engraved on copper—the first Swiss map to be engraved in this manner—and published in Rome with a dedication to Jost von Meggen, commander of the Swiss Guard. The only known copies to date are held... Read more

This spring, the Zurich Central Library was able to acquire the 24 sheets of Andreas Hefti’s “War Game Map” at auction from a private collector. The famous “War Game Map” is a one-of-a-kind document that had never been published due to military secrecy. It depicts the northern and... Read more

The Zurich Central Library and the Swiss Society for Cartography (SGK) present a weekly MAP BLOG FOR MAP YEAR 2015–16 on the SGK website. Here is an example from the 19/70 entry: http://www.kartografie.ch/imy/19.html Cheers! (Summary) One Becomes Two—Cheers! With a globe? No, with a globe trophy! The specimen... Read more

Did you know that during the first ascent of the Matterhorn, Whymper and his climbing partners were four meters closer to the sky than today’s mountaineers—if one considers only the elevation contours? During the first ascent of the Matterhorn 150 years ago, the mountain’s height was listed as... Read more

Compare the old and new national maps The 1:25,000-scale national map is being updated to reflect the latest technical and graphic standards. The 1:25,000 national map, first published in the 1950s, no longer meets today’s requirements. It is based on the state of the art at that time... Read more