Historical story

These 100 cards tell the history of the Netherlands

For lovers of historical cartography, a new 'must have' has been released:the Dutch history in a hundred maps. What is special about the book is that it is not the cartography that is leading, but important historical events.

Did you know that the Romans built their famous road network mainly in the Mediterranean region? The Netherlands lay in the border area of ​​the Empire and received a lot less attention from the Roman road builders. Here you often found older, prehistoric roads. This is a great example of how to read a historical map, such as the fourth century Roman road network map. The historical information here makes the subject more alive. And this is just one of the hundred maps from the new book The history of the Netherlands in 100 old maps.

Center of the world

The book was largely made by Marieke van Delft, curator of old prints at the Koninklijke Bibliotheek, and Reinder Storm, curator of cartography at Allard Pierson. This author's couple wants to use the book to provide an overview of the entire Dutch history, and to cover all areas, on the basis of maps. We cannot blame the authors for the fact that the Golden Age with 22 maps and the Amsterdam map makers are ultimately a bit more prominent:in the seventeenth century, Amsterdam was simply the most important place in the world for cartography and its makers.

In any case, the book did not become an overview of the most important or well-known maps and their mapmakers:the history subjects were at the forefront of the selection and the authors went in search of maps that could best illustrate these subjects. The result is a book with not only topographical maps, but also plenty of maps on social topics. It even contains a few predecessors of the now widely used infographics. According to Storm, these maps are not necessarily cartographically correct, but they want to depict a certain subject, or make a social statement.

For example, there is a map from 1898 about the different types of industry in the Netherlands in which women are employed, compared to the number of men. This is the time of the first wave of feminism and there was a fight for higher wages for women workers, among other things. That same year, this map hung at the entrance of the National Exhibition of Women's Labor in The Hague to show how large the share of working women was for the Dutch economy.

In the beginning

Featured by the editors

MedicineWhat are the microplastics doing in my sunscreen?!

AstronomySun, sea and science

BiologyExpedition to melting land

The hundred cards each form a separate chapter. A large copy of each map is shown in color, spread over two pages, followed by two pages of text with historical information. The authors clearly outline the historical context of the map. They considered the scientific basis to be important, which is reflected in the references to recent research, among other things. For example, (part of) the oldest map of the Netherlands, dating from 1526, was only discovered in 2012 in a book about world history from the sixteenth century.

The timeline starts in the year 69, with the Batavians. The text has the somewhat remarkable headline The earliest inhabitants of the Netherlands, as if there were no people living in our territories before the year 69, but this aside. There is no map from this period, but because the Batavians have appealed to the imagination in our history, a 17th-century reconstruction of the Netherlands at the time of the Batavians is depicted here.

Of course it remains a map book, so the authors also mention the start of functional cartography in the Low Countries. Until the sixteenth century, few maps were made because "the whole idea of ​​drawing sketches showing spatial relationships, such as the road from one place to another or the shape of fields, was something that medieval people seldom did," according to the authors.

The oldest Dutch map, dated around 1307, therefore looks strange. It is a very schematic representation of the area with a description in it. When I first saw the image, I didn't even realize I was looking at a map, I just saw the description of the area.

The book describes some of the sixteen known maps from before 1500 that show the Netherlands. The Scheldt map from 1490 is somewhat reminiscent of the Roman road map from the fourth century:also a long vertical map. But over a thousand years later, we follow the waterways that served as trade routes. It is not for nothing that many Dutch cities are located along the water and that these early maps have the waterways as their subject. The authors report that until the nineteenth century, goods and people were largely transported by water. What would our country have looked like without all those big, busy roads? It is almost impossible to imagine.

Average Netherlands?

When I look at the hundred maps, I still wonder how representative this book is for the history of the whole of the Netherlands. Does every Dutch person find their history in this? The timeline runs until the flood disaster in 1953, which already excludes part of it. This choice gives the book something nostalgic, it provides a reflection of the 'old' Netherlands. The debate between historians, but also within society, about our colored view of Dutch history is an afterthought in the book. The authors could have done more with this.

For example, the abolition of slavery is mentioned on the timeline, but there is no map on the subject. Curaçao and Suriname at the time of slavery are indeed discussed, the latter with a map from 1770 of all plantations in the colony, but the accompanying text touches on the subject rather minimally. We also read little about slavery in the Dutch East Indies.

On the other hand, try to capture the most important historical events in a hundred cards. Not possible of course, because there are many more, so criticism always comes. The combination of the images with the extensive texts with context works well in any case. It is certainly an instructive book that also looks beautiful:in addition to the color maps, many colorful images illustrate the historical subjects.

Some areas are discussed less often, for example Friesland or Limburg:Magna Frisia, the Frisian Empire from the time of Charlemagne, is not mentioned. Moreover, to their horror, the authors only realized at a late stage that they had nothing about Limburg, after which they chose a coal mine map. But all in all, the thick and beautifully designed book is clearly made with love by the author couple.

Cartography year

The reason for publishing the book now is the biennial international scientific conference for historical cartography. Amsterdam is the host this summer, which was the reason for the Koninklijke Bibliotheek and the Royal Palace on Dam Square to make an exhibition about their most beautiful and most important maps. And then, of course, this book, a collaboration between the Koninklijke Bibliotheek and the Allard Pierson, is the icing on the cake.

Do you want to know more about these cards? There is a bibliography for each card at the back of the book. You can also visit the Exhibition Masterpieces in the Koninklijke Bibliotheek until 16 July 2019. I took a look and in the dark, the exhibition hall is dimly lit because of all those vulnerable cards, criss-cross display cases are placed. This contains a nice selection of cards from the book, including the explanation in text on an illuminated screen next to it. Historical cartography is even more fun in real life.