After the foundation of the German Empire in 1871 it was possible to map the entire national territory according to standard cartographic features. In 1878, the four German kingdoms of Prussia, Bavaria, Saxony and Württemberg decided to compile this map series at a scale of 1:100,000. By 1909, the German Empire had been topographically mapped: 674 sheets, engraved in copper, from number 1 Nimmersatt (now in Lithuania) to number 674 Steinernes Meer. Each sheet covers an area of about a thousand square kilometers. The maps are highly detailed with a differentiated signature key. Apart from a few exceptions, the map collection of the IfL owns all sheets of this series also called "Generalstabskarte", in several editions and all of them in the digital collection.

open collection