CONSIDERATIONS ON SPANISH COLONIAL MAPS ON HISPANIOLA ISLAND

Abstract

Authors have been conducting the field research under the title ‘Origin, Transformation, Alteration and Conservation of Urban Space of Colonial cities’ since 1999. Through the analysis of the colonial maps authors discuss the Spanish Colonial urban process in the Hispaniola Island. In the period of the Spanish urbanism in America, approximately thirty two colonial cities were established in Hispaniola Island. This study on these cities has been accomplished based on the analysis of old maps corresponding to colonial Spanish period. As cartographic database, 916 images and maps from AGI (The Archive of the Indies in Seville- Archivo de Indias de Sevilla), are used for analysis. In the analysis of the colonial maps, we classify them into several types according to the criteria of urban and territorial items such as geographical maps, city maps and architecture maps, and we discuss the characteristics.