Historical Atlas of Poland. Detailed maps of the 16th century

The idea of developing an atlas of sixteenth-century Poland was formulated and undertaken in the 1880s. Established in 1953, the Section for the Historical Atlas of the Institute of History of the Polish Academy of Sciences was a continuation of the institution of the same name, operating at the Warsaw Scientific Society, and indirectly – the Historical Atlas Commission functioning at the Society since 1921. After the Second World War, atlas of the Płock Voivodeship around 1578 (1958) and atlas of Royal Prussia in the second half of the 16th century (1961) were published at the Institute of History of the Polish Academy of Sciences. In 1964 the concept was revised and the edition was started in a new series – detailed maps of the 16th century called: ‘Historical Atlas of Poland. Detailed maps of the 16th century’ (AHP).

The subject of the study are Polish lands in the second half of the 16th century. Each volume consists of two parts. The first includes a detailed main map (scale 1:250,000) showing settlement, the lie of the land, afforestation, parish network, state, and church administrative divisions, roads, as well as overview maps (scale 1:500,000) dedicated to selected issues and plans of chosen cities (scale of 1:10,000). The second part are commentaries containing an overview of the source base, methods of elaboration, and lists of localities (including, inter alia, name variations, and non-localized settlements) and physiographic names.

In 2021, the AHP series was completed. The last three volumes of the Atlas were published: Cuyavian-Dobrzyń, Podlasie, and Prussian (as a supplement) and – as an electronic publication – a collective (Polish and English) edition of all volumes of the AHP. The work also resulted in a digital historical map of the Polish lands of the Crown in the second half of the 16th century, as well as source editions and databases of tax registers from the second half of the 16th century. AHP volumes are in the Digital Repository of Scientific Institutes, and links to digital databases can be found on the AtlasFontium website.

List of AHP volumes (chronological order):

• 3: Województwo lubelskie w drugiej połowie XVI wieku, ed. Władysław Pałucki, comp. Stefan Wojciechowski, Warszawa 1966.
• 7: Mazowsze w drugiej połowie XVI wieku, ed. Władysław Pałucki, Warszawa 1973.
• 2: Województwo sandomierskie w drugiej połowie XVI wieku, ed. Władysław Pałucki, Warszawa 1993.
• 5: Województwo sieradzkie i województwo łęczyckie w drugiej połowie XVI wieku, ed. Henryk Rutkowski, Warszawa 1998.
• 1: Województwo krakowskie w drugiej połowie XVI wieku, ed. Henryk Rutkowski, Warszawa 2008.
• 4: Wielkopolska w drugiej połowie XVI wieku, ed. Krzysztof Chłapowski and Marek Słoń, Warszawa 2017.
• 6: Kujawy i ziemia dobrzyńska w drugiej połowie XVI wieku, ed. Wiesława Duży, in collaboration with Arkadiusz Borek and Michał Słomski, Warszawa 2021.
• 8: Województwo podlaskie w drugiej połowie XVI wieku, ed. Michał Gochna and Bogumił Szady, Warszawa 2021.
• Prusy Królewskie w drugiej połowie XVI wieku. Suplement, ed. Tomasz Panecki and Marek Słoń, Warszawa 2021.

List of collective AHP editions (chronological order):

• Historical Atlas of Poland in the 2nd Half of the 16th Century. Voivodeships of Cracow, Sandomierz, Lublin, Sieradz, Łęczyca, Rawa, Płock and Mazovia, ed. M. Słoń, transl. by Agata Staszewska; Martha A. Brożyna, Frankfurt am Main 2014: Peter Lang, „Geschichte Erinnerung Politik Posener Studien zur Geschichts-, Kultur- und Politikwissenschaft” (Bd. 6).
• Atlas historyczny polski. Ziemie polskie korony w drugiej połowie XVI wieku, ed. Marek Słoń, Warszawa 2021.
• Historical Atlas of Poland. Polish Lands of the Crown in the Second Half of the Sixteenth Century, collective edition edited by Marek Słoń and Katarzyna Słomska-Przech, Warszawa 2021.