Around Switzerland in Eighty Maps

25 January 2022

Switzerland has always been a country of and with maps. For centuries, maps of all kinds have been made and distributed. In the visual and digital information society, new maps are increasing exponentially.

Switzerland has also always been a country of map readers. Maps have accompanied the Swiss intensively from childhood, at home, at school, in the many hiking clubs or in the army.

Swisstopo, Schweizmobil or Peakfinder are the modern digital creations. The quality and precision of the watchmaking industry is reflected in ancient and modern digital cartography.

This 500-year-old tradition is bundled into the cartographic journey through time “Mit 80 Karten durch die Schweiz”.

These maps travel through space and time and almost all regions of Switzerland. The accompanying text places them in the historical perspective of half a millennium. The reader gets a clear picture of the identity of Switzerland.

Based on these 80 maps, the book describes this development from the first Swiss Confederation in 1480 to the birth of modern cartography.

The themes are spaces and borders, town and country, war and peace, transport and tourism, people and markets, and visions and fiction.

(Diccon Bewes, Mit 80 Karten durch die Schweiz. Eine Zeitreise (Baden, 2015).