Map series

A map series is a group of topographic or thematic maps or charts usually having the same scale and cartographic specifications, and with each sheet appropriately identified by its publisher as belonging to the same series.

Map series occur when an area is to be covered by a map that, due to its scale, must be spread over several sheets. Nevertheless, the individual sheets of a map series can also be used quite independently, as they generally have full map surround details and legends. If a publisher produces several map series at different scales, then these series are called .

In everyday use, individual maps and atlases are sometimes described as being part of a "map series". However, that is not a correct use of the technical language of cartography, in which the term map series refers exclusively to the phenomenon described here, namely a map published over several sheets. The scope of a map series can range from as few as two sheets to at least tens of thousands of sheets.

Obsolete maps, especially of the 19th century, are often named Topographic Atlases, because their small-sized sheets were also bound into atlases. An example of such a map series is the Topographic Atlas of the Kingdom of Hanover and the Duchy of Brunswick.

A map series is not to be confused with a map collection, which is a map storage site and its contents, usually forming part of a library, archive, museum, or held at the premises of a map publisher or public authority.

It is technically very difficult, and it would be highly impractical, to print, e.g., the National Map of Switzerland on a single sheet at a scale of 1:25.000 (that particular map would be about 9 metres (30 ft) high and 14 metres (46 ft) wide). For that reason, map series are issued and preserved in loose-leaf form. In extreme cases, a map series can include thousands of sheets. Probably the greatest map series ever created is the 1:25,000 topographic map of the Soviet Union, with about 300,000 sheets, completed in 1987.

Occasionally, smaller map series will be compiled by the buyer into a bound volume, without thereby incorporating into the bound work the otherwise typical features of an atlas.

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Wikipedia