Digital is beautiful
We can confirm, that nearly all new Hungarian maps are now made by computer: small inset maps in books, lexicons, illustrations in newspapers, handy maps of medium sizes, heavy atlases and the biggest size wall maps. There are only some corrected maps of Cartographia, and GiziMap still having originals on astralon or other plastic materials, but also these firms are putting their existing map fond into computer step by step.
It is also to underline, that the leading firms have been using non cartographic programs for many years already. For example DIMAP has produced on PC (among tens of other maps) a very well selling Budapest map (1:27.000), Budapest atlas (1:20.000) and road atlas of Hungary (1:250.000) using AutoCAD and Autoscript. The reason: this method could be used by relatively small capacity computers in 1991-93 (in the time they have started), and now it would cost too much time and money to change the system. DIMAP's people still hope on arising of new universal, Windows compatible (but not too expensive) cartographic softwares, which will allow them to use the data they have developed till now with AutoCAD.
CORELDRAW is another favourite program for many cartographic firms, first of all for smaller ones and beginners. DIMAP makes maps and illustrations sized maximum 50 x 70 cm, but e.g. NYÍR-KARTA produces standard maps sized B1-A0 using the latest versions of Corel and speedy PC-s with enough big RAM capacity. Also huge size (2 x 3 m) unique and "personalized" wall maps can be plotted out from data in Corel.
TOP-O-GRÁF (then also Ábel and Kárpátia) have started (1992) with FreeHand on MacIntosh and they have been using this software till now with big success for any type of cartographic, tourist related and graphic products. They have now several computers with combined platforms (PC-Mac), so having the newest version of FreeHand they can more easy transform materials from PC into Mac or from Mac into PC. This is the technical base for cooperation between firms having data on different platforms. FreeHand seems to be very popular not only in Hungary, Ukraine, Romania and other Eastern European countries, but also in many Western Europe, what is very important for the export of Hungarian cartographic services (row data, or ready maps).
The first copy of the "cartographic" software OCAD for business use was bought by Cartographia in 1991. But now this program is very popular in our part of the World, because it is very cheap (some 400 USD) and made by a cartographer for cartographers. So OCAD "thinks" like a traditionally skilled specialist and the most important aim of the software is to produce multicolour map originals for printing. Beside of Cartographia PannonCart, Map StŁdi˘ and other firms operate with Hans Steinegger's masterpiece. OCAD 7 (planned for February 1999) will ensure also the compatibility with FreeHand.
Explosion in map production
In the period before the Barcelona General Assembly we reported about the big quantity of smaller size city maps and regional maps produced by the new cartographic formations. Beginning with 1995 the newly established cartographic firms produce already bigger maps including the maps and atlases of Budapest and Hungary.
It is very characteristic for our country, that the best selling titles are the maps and atlases of Budapest, the yearly "consumption" of these two titles can reach 2-300.000 copies. That is why many of new firms try to cut a piece from this "sweet pie". The first such publication was the map of Budapest 1:30.000 (DIMAP-Szarvas-Freytag 170.000 copies in 1995-96). This best selling map has now the 4th edition and an enlarged format (1:27.000). Then (1995-98) also Cartographia (1:25.000, 1:27.500, 1:28.000), Pannoncart/Kasza (1:30.000) and TOP-O-GRÁF (1:33.000) have published new Budapest city maps, which are now offered in different forms and under different covers. We have here listed only the maps covering the whole territory of Budapest, because it would be impossible to list the tourism oriented titles covering the inner part of the town.
Back in the eighties we had the only Budapest atlas of Cartographia, then in 1992 the Bertelsmann owned Officina Nova (with RV Stuttgart) came out with the big atlas of Budapest and environs (1:20.000 covering 72 communities!), which had a very big success because of the good legibility and poligraphical quality. Also the spiral binding was positively accepted by the Hungarian public. In 1995 both Cartographia and DIMAP-Szarvas-Freytag have issued each a new Budapest atlas at scale 1:20.000. All these atlases have since that time new editions, but we have also other atlases on the market: TOP-O-GRÁF/Freytag (1:20.000, 1:25.000), Cartographia 1:25.000, so we can think, that our capital has now the best offer on large scale maps and atlases.
Similar situation is with the maps and atlases of Hungary. Officina Nova started with the large scale map and atlas (1:300.000) in 1991-92. Then in 1995 Cartographia published an atlas 1:200.000, later in 1998 1:250.000 and 1:360.000. DIMAP-ERMAP-Szarvas-Freytag in 1997 have printed an atlas 1:250.000. In 1998 TOP-O-GRÁF and NYÍR-KARTA brought out a new style atlas of Hungary at scale 1:360.000. The so called HungaroGuide (Magyar Almanach) is a hard covered book-like product (with a map section of Hungary 1:360.000 and Budapest 1:18.000) has already the 6th edition. Now we have at least 5-6 different atlases (1:200-580.000) and the same number of road maps (1:450-500.000) systematically on the market.
There is also a new style product available on the Hungarian market: the so called city atlases of counties. HISZI-MAP Ltd has started this series in 1995. Each volume contains large scale maps (1:10-20.000) of all communities (100-300) of a given Hungarian county or a region. At the beginning of 1999 the series are completed: all 19 counties and the Balaton region have city atlases. Some volumes have already more editions and the most important county (Pest, i.e. the Budapest region) has already two different atlases (HISZI and Kasza-Topopress).
In the meantime also a city atlas of Hungary has been published and it has now already the 4th edition. This volume contains a road map of Hungary (1:360.000) plus 170 city maps. The very successful publication is a common product of Z-Press (publisher) and TOP-O-GRÁF (cartographers).
There is a number of new type maps, which we have not had earlier. Cartographia and NYÍR-KARTA have published maps (1:100.000) of the river Tisza for recreational, biking and water sport purposes (1995-98). PAULUS issued large scale canoeing maps of the river Danube (1:25.000), biking-tourist maps (Along Danube from Vienna to Bratislava and Budapest) in 1996. FRIGÓRIA Publishers has now 9 biking guides with maps, some of them have already more editions.
The most successful series of TOP-O-GRÁF is the so called "Zseb Top" (Pocket Top in English). Each city map in this series has been folded to credit card size and they have on the back a county or regional map. There are now nearly 100 different Hungarian titles available, but also the first Romanian items are also published (Cluj-Napoca, Bucharest). The very nice small maps are loved not only by map collectors, they are accepted also by many of one-day- tourists, and they are very popular on the so called premium market (many firms buy them with their own cover for promotional and marketing purposes).
Taking into consideration the success of the Budapest atlases map publishers have started in 1998 the production of spiral bound atlases of the largest cities of Hungary (DIMAP-Szarvas: Győr 1:10.000 and Székely: Pécs 1:10.000). I am sure that Szeged, Miskolc and Debrecen also will get such atlases in the nearest future. We can confirm, that after the mentioned maps and atlases the private cartographic firms will publish also large scale 1:20- 50.000) tourist maps and medium scale (1:100-250.000) regional and biking maps. So the competition becomes stronger and stronger.
Go East!
After the big social changes (early nineties) we have changed also the main direction of our cartographic activity: more and more maps of eastern countries have been made by Hungarian c artographers. GiziMap started in 1992 with Estonia 1:400.000, it was followed by Latvia 1:400.000, Ukraine 1:1.200.000, Macedonia 1:260.000. All these maps had succes both in the depicted region and also among the named cartographic firms: Freytag-Berndt, Bartholomew, Map Link and others have published their own versions of the maps of Mrs. Gizella Bassa. In the series were published also Caucasus 1:1.000.000 (1996) and Central Asia 1:3.000.000 (1999). The first maps were scribed on astralon, but Central Asia has been made already on computer (with FreeHand). The next item in GiziMap's series should be Yugoslavia 1:500.000.
Many Hungarian cartographers try to take part in mapping of Romania. The reason is: there is big demand for nice and good quality maps, but there is not enough cartographic knowledge, the technical base (computers, copying and printing machines) and also the necessary capital are missing. The "ice-breaker" was DIMAP early 1990 (several weeks after the revolution in Romania) with the famous map of Transylvania 1:500.000, which shows all historical names of the settlements in Hungarian and German (beside of the now official Romanian forms). This map has already 6 issues with a general run of 100.000 copies, and it is used as "the map" of that part of the country. Freytag-Berndt (Vienna) and Cartographia have been distributing this map since 1997 under their cover.
Among others Cartographia and TOP-O-GRÁF have produced (1995-99) a lot of high quality city maps (e.g. Cluj-Napoca, Gheorgeni, Oradea etc.). DIMAP has started in 1996 a series of small touristic maps 1:15-50.000 (St-Anna lake, Padis, Harghita etc). Cartographia with Ábel Ltd (later Kárp´tia) have published (1997) a large scale tourist information and road map (1:250.000) of Secuimea (Szék;elyföld, or land of the Székelys = the mostly Hungarian speaking region of Romania). The map had 3 editions in 2 years (altogether 25.000 copies printed).
All the mentioned maps were produced by in Hungary residing cartographers in very close cooperation with Hungarian speaking citizens of Romania. These people delivered the local data and they are also distributing the maps in Romania. The same was the situation with the best selling and best quality road map of Romania 1:700.000, compiled and published by Ábel and Kárpátia in 1997. But later also a Romanian distributor (JIF) has joined to distribute this map, because there is no other good map offered in Romania. Also the named Western firms (like RV, Mair, Ravenstein) have old and not too exact maps of smaller scale (1:750-800.000). But Freytag-Berndt (Vienna) have bought special runs of Kárpátia's map for World distribution through their channels.
Map distribution in Hungary
There are different centralized all country distribution channels and many smaller ones. About Cartographia's activity you will find information in an other article of this report, that is why here only the other firms will be regarded.
Stiefel (Ingolstadt) has founded his Hungarian firm (Stiefel Eurocart Ltd) already in 1991 and at once their built up a distribution net for school wall maps, wall maps for business. Each agent of Stiefel controls a special part of the country, like it has been functioning since many years in nearly all western countries. Beside of selling Stiefel's own sortiment the agents are very active also on the so called premium market, and they serve their client with customized wall maps, mapped wall calendars, atlases and handy maps, writing and mouse pads.
Freytag-Berndt Budapest Ltd. has developed out also a centralized distribution based on the activity of two oldest private map-sellers and the big choice of the maps from Freytag Vienna. This new distribution trust is very active on the petrol stations (some 500 sales points in the country) and they offer not only Freytag's articles with Hungarian cover, but also the most important Hungarian products too (large scale tourist maps of Hungary, Hungarian city maps, maps and atlases of Budapest and Hungary etc.).
Térképvilág (Map World) has a very special role, because this firm tries to store all possible maps, globes and guides: cca 3-4.000 different titles from Hungarian and foreign publishers they have generally on stock. Mairs, Falk, RV, Ravenstein, Freytag-Berndt, Collins-Bartholomew, Michelin, Polyglott, Baedeker, Berlitz, LAC Firenze, Scan Globe are to mention among the biggest represented European firms; Ábel, Cartographia, DIMAP, HISZI, Kárpátia, MI ( MB, NYÍR-KARTA, Stiefel-Eurocart, TOP-O-GRÁF, Techno-Globus, PannonCart, Paulus, Szarvas, Well Press, Z-Press, Zéta and many others are the Hungarians. That is why Map World can have still more than 1.000 clients (retail map shops, book shops, stationeries, hotels, newsstands etc.) Also the biggest Hungarian petrol station net (MOL with some 600 sales points) is the official client of Térképvilág.
Magyar Térképház (the Hungarian Staedte Verlag) has also own agents for the distribution of the some 100 Hungarian city maps, but their green covered maps are also distributed by nearly all (and above mentioned) centralised channels. Also the free lance distributors like the MH city and regional maps, because having the local maps they can sell also other products in the given city.
Most of private cartographers and map publishers (we have an estimated number of 100-200) try to sell their own products through all possible channels, such as map distributors, book distributing firms and local sales points.
Szarvas András Cartographic Agency
Established in 1991 we had two main tasks: to have the best selling and nicest titles for the Hungarian market and to bring all Hungarian maps and map related goods into the World market. Our catalogue of Hungarian maps has a circulation of 3-5.000 pcs all over the World (book fairs, direct mail, IMTA venues etc.). The catalogue includes the official topographic, geologic maps, digital products and of course the available private maps of Hungary and the surrounding areas.
For further information:
Szarvas András Cartographic Agency
H-1149 Budapest, Répássy Jenő u. 2. IV. 27.
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