Man, there have been some wonderful maps made over the years, particularly helpful maps of "our" part of Europe. They're beautiful, and give us a good idea of the topography where our folks lived. I've never understood how mapmakers could create something fairly accurate 300 or 400 years ago tho. WELL! The World's Best Researcher found a pdf file called Mapping Czech Lands, and it's very interesting.
"The Műller’s map of Bohemia includes the division of settlements into 10 basic categories (royal and other towns, towns with ramparts, townships, castles, mansions and knight palaces, small towns with a castle and a church, villages with a castle, villages with and without a church, individual farmyards, passable villages and scattered settlements). Further there are monasteries and lonely standing churches and farm buildings. Depicted are rivers and ponds...The thematic content of the map is very rich and it shows mining areas of various raw materials, glass factories, ferries, postal stations, medicinal and thermal springs, tilt-hammers, water mills, roads and vineyards". Look for the tiny trees that depicted forests and reeds that show swamps...cool, huh?
And here's the answer to my question of HOW:
"For mapping he used geodetic points, their position was measured astronomically. For drawing of topography he used the compass and the distances he measured by the number of turns of wheels of measuring cars pulled by horses".
Really--click the link up there. It's a veritable Hesch history lesson. ☺
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