Determining the scale and map projection of Stjepan Glavač’s map from 1673

Abstract

ABSTRACT The uniqueness and detail in the depiction of Croatian regions gives Glavač's map exceptional importance as part of the Croatian cultural heritage. Since Glavač left behind as written evidence of map creation only its title and an exhaustive dedication, other information about the map remains unknown. The appearance of the cartographic network indicates that it is a normal aspect of cylindrical projection. From the relationship between the coordinates from the map, we concluded that Glavač used the equidistant cylindrical projection with the equator as a standard parallel. After that we have calculated that the ratio of the radius of the Earth's sphere to the scale of the map is 2292.7. The numerical scale of the map can be determined from a graphical scale and from the calculated ratio of the radius to the map scale. Since there were several attempts to determine the Earth's dimensions at the time of Glavač's map, there are several possible radii of the Earth's sphere. At the end of the paper, calculating the interval of the numerical scale of the map enabled us to refute and/or accept the theses of other authors who cited different scales of Glavač's map in their works.