Cartography of Switzerland

Switzerland has had its current boundaries since 1815, but maps of the Old Swiss Confederacy were drawn since the 16th century. The first topographical survey on a federal level began in 1809, resulting in the Topographic Map of Switzerland (German: Topographische Karte der Schweiz) or Dufour Map (German: Dufourkarte; French: Carte Dufour). From 1869 to 1901, this map was replaced by the Topographic Atlas of Switzerland (German: Topographischer Atlas der Schweiz) or Siegfried Map (German: Siegfriedkarte; French: Carte Siegfried).

From 1901, the Topographical Survey of Switzerland is an independent division within the military, introducing the Swiss coordinate system in 1903. The office is renamed as the Swiss Federal Office of Topography in 1979, with the swisstopo.ch website online since 1997.

The first systematic geographical description of Switzerland is the Superioris Germaniae Confoederationis descriptio by Albert von Bonstetten (1479). The oldest map Old Swiss Confederacy is the one by Konrad Türst (d. 1503), physician in Zürich from 1489, made during 1495–1497. Trüst's map shows most of the territory of modern Switzerland (but excluding Basel and Geneva). On the margins is a coordinate grid in Arabic numerals, using Ptolemy's prime meridian of 20°W.

The first printed map of Switzerland is Tabula Nova Heremi Helvetiorum, published in the 1513 Strasbourg edition of Ptolemy. Numerous maps followed in the 16th century, notably those by Aegidius Tschudi (1538, 1560), Johannes Stumpf (1548), Sebastian Münster (c. 1550) and Abraham Ortelius (1570). Most of these early maps were oriented towards either the south or the east. The convention of orienting maps towards the north was gradually introduced beginning in the mid 16th-century (an early example being the 1555 map by Antonio Salamanca), but remained in use alongside the earlier conventions well into the 17th century. Tschudi gave his scale in the miliaria Helvetica ("Helvetic mile"), corresponding eight Italian miles.

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