COMPARISON OF THE CITY MAPS’ CONTENT OF WESTERN, EASTENRN AND CENTRAL EU ROPEAN CITIES

Significant changes in the wealth, variety and level of graphic form of city maps are noticeable in recent years, particularly those from Central and Eastern European countries. This is a consequence of the political and economic transformation, resulting in the abolition of censorship and introduction of the free market. Such transformations have also brought significant changes to the city maps’ content, notably, features whose representation had been forbidden could finally be represented. City maps published in Western Europe have evolved as well during the aforementioned period due to higher political and economic stability. The paper compares city maps content of 21 European countries. Differences in the cartographic representation of Western and Central and Eastern European cities are distinct. The influence of a S oviet cartographic style is easily visible in post-communist countries. This is expressed, among other things, by the presentation of detailed content and the considerable amount of point symbols. By contrast, the content demonstrated in Western European city maps is narrower. Taking into account importance of city maps among other cartographic products it seems surprising, that there are no analyses, which could help in finding answers to the following questions: which factors have considerable influence on differentiating the content of the European city maps? Which objects and characteristics are common for each city maps? Do city maps reflect character of the presented city, or there are no important regional differences?