Northern Europe Map 1943 Sydow-Wagner School Atlas Print - Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark

This map of Northern Europe, titled Nordeuropa, comes from Sydow-Wagners methodischer Schul-Atlas, the 22nd edition, published by Justus Perthes in Gotha in 1943. The edition was edited by Hermann Haack and Hermann Lautensach and cartographically reviewed by O. Stollt. The map is drawn on a simplified conic projection and has three insets. It measures about 29 by 35 centimeters and shows Scandinavia, with Sweden, Norway and Finland, in color-coded relief, with brown tones for the mountains, green for the lowlands and blue for the waters of the Baltic and the northern seas. It is a handsome sheet whose color relief is easy to read from a distance. The sheet is a plain and orderly teaching map that was made to be read closely and used often.

The atlas contains 61 double-page colored map pages, with 59 main maps and 258 secondary maps at variable scales, along with 15 pages of text and a name index. Its maps include color-coded references, legends and secondary title pages. The Perthes firm of Gotha was one of the most distinguished German map publishers, and the school atlas of Sydow and Wagner was among its best-known works. A map from the school atlas is a plain and orderly document, made for teaching, and it has the precision and the careful typography of German scientific cartography.

A collector of German school atlases, a family with roots in Sweden, Norway or Finland, or a student of twentieth-century cartography will find a historic gift here. TheMapVault's Hartleben map of Denmark of 1888 is a Vienna lithograph, whereas this Perthes sheet is a Gotha school map of the twentieth century. Like every print in the collection, it ships unframed and is available in a full range of sizes, from a compact desk piece to a large-format statement print. It also makes a good pairing with other maps of Northern Europe. It will stay a pleasure to look at for many years.