This article presents a new methodology for analyzing old maps that was used to identify and interpret cartographic symbols on selected maps. It analyzes fifty-eight maps, originating from the ...sixteenth to nineteenth centuries and showing the territory of Slovenia. The basic criteria for selecting the maps were authorship, scale, and the territory depicted. The study included maps at a medium scale of 1:200,000 to 1:900,000. Approximately eighty entries were made for each map, and several thousand pieces of data were obtained, which then required a uniform and systematic examination of all cartographic symbols on the maps selected. Before the nineteenth century, changes in symbols for vegetation, relief, transport networks, and explanatory elements were the most evident. The article concludes by highlighting the reliability of cartographic content as a source for research. The new method for examining maps makes it easier to determine the cause-and-effect relationship of cartographic elements to map content.
This study analyzed selected cartographic symbols on old maps depicting the territory of Slovenia from the sixteenth to nineteenth century. A semiotic approach was applied to establish connections ...between cartographic symbols on old maps and the characteristics of society at the time the maps were created. This semiotic approach was used to discuss the impact of the interpretation of four symbolic cartographic elements, their iconic basis, and the reading of the five maps analyzed. Cartographic symbols changed in line with the development of cartography at the time, as well as society. The depictions of settlements were first stylistic and then geometric. Relief depictions were first stylized and then shown through plastic or spatial methods. Cartographic symbols gradually changed into symbolic signs (in the semiotic sense), including the quality of the map display, as a result of developments and the demands of changing society.
