Connections and exchanges in European thematic cartography. The case of 19th century choropleth maps

• Main Author: Gilles Palsky
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Société Royale Belge de Géographie and the Belgian National Committee of Geography 2008-12-01
• Series: Belgeo
• Subjects: cartography (history of); choropleth map; Dupin (Charles); Europe; France; map
• Online Access: http://journals.openedition.org/belgeo/11893

In the beginning of the 19th century, thematic cartography was enriched with subjects related to the human world. In particular, the enthusiasm for statistics put on the foreground several topics drawn from what we would call today “social sciences”: demography, political economics, and moral statistics. In this context, most of the methods of quantitative mapping were invented within a short period, between 1826 and 1850. This article deals with the first and the most popular among these methods, the shaded map, which is credited to the Frenchman Charles Dupin. We explore the circumstances in which it was imagined, and its modes of diffusion in European cartography. Dupin’s shaded map became quickly famous and was imitated by scholars in the field of vital and moral statistics, then of medicine and anthropology. We suggest that these thematic maps were not neutral illustrations, but were primarily conceived as arguments in scientific or ideological debates, and that their sign system played a major role in their persuasive effect.