The Status of Topographic Mapping in New Zealand

NOT until March, I939, could New Zealand claim to have produced a topographic map comparable with those of North America and Western Europe either in wealth of physical and cultural detail or in technical efficiency of execution. In that month was published the first sheet of a national series of topographic maps on the scale of i: 63,360. In the intervening six years almost half of the Dominion's 103,043 square miles has been mapped and more than 140 sheets have been published. Military secrecy and Army requirements precluded issue of the new maps to the general public, and they were not released until early in I945. This fine achievement therefore makes no showing on the index map recently published by the American Geographical Society depicting the status of official topographic mapping throughout the world at the outbreak of the war

Cartography · Geography · Geographic Information Systems Studies · Geology · Historical Geography and Cartography · Pacific and Southeast Asian Studies