Second Military Survey (c. 1840)

The Second Military Survey, also called the Franciscan survey, is a set of detailed colour maps made for the army in the Austrian Empire. Moravia and Silesia were mapped in 1836-1840, Bohemia in 1842-1852. The map sheets, at a scale of 1:28,800, show roads, streams, ponds, forests, meadows, fields and the built-up areas of villages. CENIA, the Czech environmental information agency, provides them as a map viewing service for the whole of Czechia.

What the map shows

The map shows the place before the railway and large-scale building. You can see where the original village stood, where roads ran, where there was a meadow by a stream or a pond that later disappeared. For today's house this can be interesting context: it may explain why a street has its shape or hint that the site used to be wet ground. It is only a clue, however, not a finding about the plot.

Comparing it with today's orthophoto shows how the landscape has changed over almost two centuries: where field boundaries and copses disappeared, how far the village has grown and what has stayed the same.

What to watch out for

• The map is fitted onto today's base only approximately, because it was made with different surveying methods from modern maps.
• It cannot be used to determine plot boundaries; those are defined by the cadastral map and on site by boundary staking.
• Do not confuse it with the stable cadastre maps of roughly the same period, which were made for tax purposes and show individual plots.
• It does not replace current risk data such as the map of the flood zone.

Frequently asked questions

Why was the survey made?

The maps served the army, which needed an accurate and consistent picture of the territory. They followed the First Military Survey of the 18th century, whose sheets had large positional errors and did not fit together well.

How does it differ from an orthophoto?

An orthophoto is a photograph showing the actual situation on the day of imaging. The Second Military Survey is a hand-drawn map, so it shows what the mapmaker was told to record, in simplified symbols. It is still a unique source for picturing the landscape around 1840. For the mid-20th century, historical aerial photos are available.