Overview
The old maps of Budapest website of the Historical Maps of the Habsburg Empire, MAPIRE, includes the most important and most detailed maps of Budapest from the 18th century to the mid-20th. By the georeferenced maps, one can step by step trace the change of the city. This process contributes to several services which make the said change visible: the contemporary and the recent maps can be projected to each other; 3-D view; search in the place name database of the Google Maps; area and distance measurement. The study of the alterations of any part of the city is the easiest through this. The database of the maps is worthy in those cases if one is interested in maps containing special information, thematic maps, plans of land development and maps with minor precision in the field of the layout.
It shall be kept in mind that in the reference box of the database of maps and other search tools that reference has been marked which the given map received in the Catalogue of the Old Maps of Budapest publication. The exact references of the collections are located in the case of the Hungaricana Cultural Heritage Portal in the box called ‘Place of the highlight’, while on the Hungarian Archival Portal this information is contained by the box of ‘Description’. In the event of referring to the source, this information must be noted. In the list always those references are the first which start with BFL. These issues kept by the Budapest City Archives. The non-digitalized maps can be ordered to the research room through the said references.
The historical topography of Budapest database contains historical-topographical data for several quarters and districts of Budapest built up or allotted before 1873, specifically the Castle, Krisztinaváros, the Inner City, Lipótváros, Terézváros, Erzsébetváros, Józsefváros, and Ferencváros. It makes it possible to retrace the changes in the identification data of the lots in these areas from the late 17th century up to recent times. In the records of this database, the current address of the property (street name plus number) and topographical number of a property is linked to the earlier identification data of the same property (number of lot, street number). To the version of the database published at HAP there are geo-referenced city maps attached, from various points in time since the early 19th century till now. From the topographic data we can follow links to get to the given points of the maps selected from a list, identifying the position of a contemporary property on an earlier map. On the Hungaricana Cultural Heritage Portal one can search through place names on the available maps or navigate on them and open the topographical records related to the chosen point (Follow this link). The maps are accessible there through the records found by search as well. Then the chosen place can be studied by selecting from the maps created at different times as ‘layers’.
