Maps and Views

Are you interested in the earlier history of the collection? Then take a look at the Highlights page of our collection.

• From 1806 Thanks to planned acquisitions, the Dresden Map Collection becomes the most extensive of its kind in Germany at that time.
• 1899 The first comprehensive catalogue of individual sheets is compiled by the head of the Map Collection, Dr. Viktor Hantzsch. The collection comprises around 30,000 sheets.

• 1939 to 1945 During the Second World War, the map collection also suffers wartime losses: a total of 8,694 maps are lost (see catalogue of lost maps, the head of the collection at the time, Dr. Gottfried Benndorf, dies in the library fire.
• From 1947 The map collection is continued at the Marienallee location. In the following years, the collection is reorganised and re-catalogued.
• 1988 The collection already comprises 60,388 maps and 24,518 topographic views. A spectacular new acquisition of this period is Cuvilliés' plan of Dresden (c. 1761), a state gift for Franz Josef Strauß' visit to Erich Honecker.
• 2002 In the course of the merger of the Saxon State Library and the University Library, the map collection of the Institute of Cartography of the Technical University of Dresden and the specialist libraries is integrated into the collection. The addition included 2,500 atlases, 33,000 map sheets and 210 maps and atlases on CD.
• Since 2005 Numerous maps can also be used online in the Map Forum of the German Photographic Library. Currently, about 20 percent of the holdings have been digitised.
• 2011 The Virtual Map Forum makes geo-referenced maps accessible for the first time and is modernised and expanded several times in the following years.

Research online

You can search the entire holdings of the map collection in the SLUB catalogue. Simply filter your search by map - then you will also see whether the respective map exists in digitised form. Or you can browse directly in the map forum. In the Virtual Map Forum, some of the digitised maps are available in georeferenced form. On the help page of the Virtual Map Forum we have compiled all the information you need to use the service step by step. In this video you can also follow the georeferencing of an old map in the Virtual Map Forum using an example.

Do you have a map that you would like to have digitised? Please feel free to send us a digitisation request.

Use in the SLUB

You can view the original maps from the SLUB catalogue in the Collections Reading Room and in the Map Reading Room by appointment.

Feel free to contact us!
Simply book an individual consultation via the Knowledge Bar.
Contact
Dominik Stoltz
Phone.: +49 351 4677-530
E-mail: dominik.stoltz@slub-dresden.de