8 October 2024

Celebrating 100 years of the Federal Office of Metrology and Surveying with Austrian histMap

Federal Office of Metrology and Surveying

“In 2023, the Federal Office of Metrology and Surveying (BEV) celebrated its centenary. As part of a festive event on 30 November 2023 in the Sofiensäle in Vienna, to which numerous guests were invited, the BEV presented among other things a new version of the Austrian Map - the Austrian histMap. With the Austrian histMap, the BEV has created an extension that offers users the opportunity to view Austria’s historical map treasures from seven eras across the country. The development of the maps and the data they contain can be easily traced. An exciting thing for anyone interested in maps.”

Wernher Hoffmann

President, Federal Office of Metrology and Surveying, Austria

The Federal Office of Metrology and Surveying (BEV) celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2023. To mark this joyous occasion, it proudly presented a new application as the Austrian Map became the Austrian histMap.

The Austrian histMap – maps.bev.gv.at – allows users to delve deep into the rich archives of the BEV and discover historical map treasures. BEV is now making the Austrian map available to users free of charge for eight different epochs.

More than 3,000 map sheets have been scanned, georeferenced, quality-checked and prepared as map tiles. This allows the user to directly compare the maps over a period of 150 years at incredible speed and discover a piece of Austrian history at the same time.

Benefits

  • Provides an efficient way to explore the current and historical map sheets.
  • Allows users to find all map-relevant content in a targeted manner, such as place names, area names, water and mountain names, through the search function.
  • Offers the possibility to compare the maps directly with each other, or simply to explore a certain time period.
  • Delivers a reliable source for historical questions and for interested citizens as the current and historical editions of the state map series are an important state infrastructure.
  • Enables users to access detailed descriptions of the respective techniques of the time for each era.
  • Provides fast and friendly access authoritative and most actual geospatial data as the whole concept of the maps.bev.gv.at is based on a 24/7 service.

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