The Brussels Map Circle currently publishes two issues per year. It is distributed, not only to Members of the Circle, but also to key institutions (universities, libraries) and to personalities active in the field of the history of cartography, located in 16 different countries.
Contents
Brussels Maps Circle News
Q&A with François Mattelaer, Brussels Map Circle President
Annual General Meeting 2026 and Activity
Report 2025
Pictures at an Exhibition
Cartes imaginaires
Looks at Books
L'histoire de Bruxelles en cartes anciennes – De Geschiedenis van Brussel in oude kaarten
Die Schichtgravur auf Glas
Four Points of the Compass
History and Cartography
The Holzheimer terrestrial globe gores revisited
Brief news: Study of a rediscovered nautical atlas
Places with Maps
Maps of Sicily in Catania
International Conferences
Report on the 31st International
Conference on the History of Cartography
(ICHC)
The Brussels Map Circle Map Afternoon
(MAPAF) Report
The journal Caert-Thresoor is seeking articles (in Dutch) for the 2027 volume. Please do not hesitate to contact the editorial team if you would like to submit an article or have an idea or proposal. Guidelines for authors can be found here.
The David Rumsey Portal now has over 150,000 digitised maps and images available online. The site also offers a wide range of tools and search options for exploring this vast collection. Visit the website here.
The Portolan is the journal of the Washington Map Society; it furthers the purpose of the Society ‘to support and promote map collecting, cartography and the study of cartographic history.’ The Portolan, the largest and most-widely distributed publication of its kind in the Americas, is issued three times per year, in the Spring, the Fall and Winter.
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The fifth instalment of Koeman's Atlantes Neerlandici features the Folio Atlases by Visscher, De Wit, Danckerts, Allard, Schenk, Valk, Mortier, Covens, Ottens and others, c. 1660–c. 1825.
More information here.
The MAP - Mercator cartography museum in Sint-Niklaas is planning to organise a map exhibition in late 2028, in which visitors will embark on a figurative journey around the world. One of the aims is to juxtapose European maps, atlases and globes from the museum’s own collection with non-Western cartographic materials.
The museum would like to extend the call to the international community of map scholars and enthusiasts by asking to suggest and/or donate one or more maps, atlases of globes from their countries of origin, especially from non-European countries. For the time being, there are no restrictions regarding the period, subject, locations, theme or map type; and they certainly don’t have to be exceptional or valuable items.
Imago Mundi is a fully-refereed, English-language journal founded in 1935. It is the only international, interdisciplinary and scholarly journal solely devoted to the study of early maps in all their aspects. Full-length articles, with abstracts in English, French, German and Spanish, deal with the history and interpretation of non-current maps and mapmaking in any part of the world. Imago Mundi also publishes shorter articles that communicate significant new findings or new opinions. All articles are fully illustrated.
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First prize: Catherine Porter, University of Limerick (Ireland) for “Locating Bench Marks, Preserving Heritage.”
Catherine Porter’s project aims to harness County Limerick’s community enthusiasm for heritage by locating and photographing Ordnance Survey bench marks across the county, as well as recording those which have disappeared. This will help us estimate the level of heritage loss across the island and open up discussions regarding their preservation and protection.
Honourary Mention: Garrett Nelson, Ian Spangler, and Emily Bowe from the Leventhal Map and Education Center (Boston) for “Processing Place: How Computers and Cartographers Redrew Our World.”
Taking a historical approach to the now familiar world of digital mapping, Processing Place explores how new computer technologies developed during the twentieth century drove profound changes in environmental management, law and policy, navigation, national defense, and much more. By comparing maps made with computers to those made before and without them, Processing Place invites us to rethink the relationships between maps, technology, and society.
