MAPS AND DRAWINGS OF THE NETHERLANDS

PART I: DUTCH DOMESTIC MAPS AND DRAWINGS, 16TH-19TH CENTURIES

This new microfiche collection from the National Archives of the Netherlands is the domestic counterpart to "Images of East and West: Maps, Plans, Views and Drawings from Dutch Colonial Archives, 1583-1963", also available from MMF.

Dutch Domestic Maps and Drawings, 16th-19th centuries

This part records the National Archives' holdings of maps and drawings up to the late 1800s for the Netherlands and the province of Holland, excluding the collection of the War Department (available separately as Part II of the present series). The earliest items in the collection date from about 1500. There is a great deal of eighteenth-century material. The maps come from several contemporary administrative organs:

— Grafelijkheidsrekenkamer, which managed property in the county of Holland, including undeveloped lands and reclaimed land (polders) lying outside the dikes.
— Nassause Domeinraad, which managed the property of the house of Orange
— States of Holland, which dealt with matters relating to water management and provincial military affairs
— States General and Council of State, which managed international relations, national defense, naval and other matters under direct control of the Dutch Republic.

The collection opens with a series of atlases and map books of various provenance, including several sixteenth- and seventeenth-century map books detailing the lands of former monasteries and convents confiscated at the Reformation in 1573. Other maps depict the country as a whole and the border regions and boundaries at various times; the coastal regions with their barriers of dikes and dunes; all the river courses of the country with separate maps showing river fisheries, accretions through silting and polder maps of reclaimed land. Further the country's canals and other waterways are included, with details of spillways, locks, sluices, dams and other constructions. Two other large subsections are devoted to maps of the eleven provinces with their polder areas and to cities, towns and villages, including fortifications, harbors, buildings and other objects. The major cities of the country, such as Amsterdam, The Hague, Rotterdam and Utrecht are amply represented. Other maps show forts and lines of defense, including some barrier towns in present-day Belgium. A great many of the maps in the collection are manuscript and are published here for the first time in any form. In all there are slightly more than 5,500 inventory entries and nearly 11,000 images.

Finding aids

The collection was originally organized and inventoried in 1871 by J.H. Hingman in a two-volume work entitled Inventaris der Verzameling Kaarten berustende in het Nationaal Archief. Tweede gedeelte (The Hague 1871). This work has long been out of print, but is now being made available in facsimile by MMF. In 1969 a first and second supplement to the collection describing maps acquired up to 1900 were published in a single volume by A.J.H. Rozemond. These inventories are provided free of charge with purchase of the complete collection. The inventories give the number of the map, a description of each item with the scale and size, the cartographer when known, the date the map was made and whether it is a manu script map or a printed example.

They are in Dutch. There are extensive indexes of personal names (cartographers, surveyors, engineers, property holders and others) (36 pp.) and geographical names (69 pp.) and a Publisher's guide in English provides additional information for the use of the material, as well as a concordance between the inventory and microfiche numbers.

Importance for research

The maps and drawings in this collection provide both a small- and large-scale overview of Dutch territory in the period from the mid-sixteenth to the late nineteenth centuries, including the border regions. They offer insight into and give detailed information on a host of subjects, among others national defense by tracing the various lines of fortifications and fortified towns; land use and land reclamation; the fight against the sea and river waters; legal and administrative jurisdictions; (former) ecclesiastical property and tax areas (tithes); the growth and development of towns and cities; urban and regional spatial planning; public and private property; civil and military engineering and construction techniques; silting and erosion; fishing, agriculture, husbandry and forestry; ways and means of communication; maritime, river, and land transport; the history of cartography, surveying and engineering and the work and careers of specific practitioners; the architecture and history of various buildings.

Also available

Part IIa. Archives of the Corps of Engineers (genie), Plans of buildings (17th-20th centuries)
Order no.: M408
Size: 1,511 microfiches
Collection price: € 5,655

Part IIb. Archives of the Corps of Engineers, Situation plans of forts and fortified towns (18th-19th centuries)
Order no.: M410
Size: 165 microfiches
Collection price: € 585

Part IIc. Archives of the Corps of Engineers, Plans of forts and fortified towns (17th-19th centuries)
Size: 1,377 microfiches
Collection price: € 5,735

Information sheets are available

List of Contents and Subsets available

Content	No. of microfiche	Price (€)
Atlases and map books	201	1,105
General maps	2	11
Frontiers of the kingdom	9	50
Sea barriers	83	455
Rivers	331	1,820
Spillways	10	55
Canals and waterways	16	88
Roads	60	330
Provincial and polder maps, etc.	435	2,395
Maps and plans of cities and villages with fortifications, harbors, buildings, etc.	146	475
Forts and defense lines	20	110
Plans of barrier towns in present-day Belgium	15	80
Maps of territories, polders, etc. outside The Netherlands	11	60
1st Supplement	238	1,310
2nd Supplement	272	1,495

A more detailed list of contents is available free on request.