Swedish Cartographic Society 100 Years

The Swedish Cartographic Society was established in 1908. It has now 2,200 members, works in five sections and organise a large conference each year with about 1,000 delegates. Also the Swedish Association for Land Engineers is of the same age and the Swedish Geological Survey (SGU) became 150 years in 2008. In order to celebrate these occasions the year of 2008 was declared as the Map Year.  

The main activity during the Map Year was the creation of a set of eleven short TV-programs to be used as fillers by the Swedish Television. The production was financed by the idealistic organisation in the field of geographic information and the main governmental agencies in the same section. Lantmäteriet (the National Land Survey of Sweden) was the biggest supporter. The films concentrate on how cartography and geographic information is used and not on how maps are produced. Another land covering event was the organisation of local arrangements. Lantmäteriet and the SGU produced a moveable exhibition, which in four copies was sent around to mostly municipalities. As an example my closest municipality, Helsingborg organised a series of five presentations and map exhibitions at the city engineering office, the city archive and the library. The last exhibition will be placed at the Swedish Governmental office. In all, the exhibition has been placed at 64 organisations.

The jubilee itself was organised in Stockholm on 13 and 14 November 2008. The Swedish Cartographic Society started with a seminar on the theme Past, Present and Tomorrow Cartography. In the evening the jubilee was celebrated in the Stockholm City Hall. The main talk was given by Professor Ulf Sporrong and prizes were delivered. The Map Year Prize was given to Eniro and Hitta, two Swedish companies that uses maps and addresses in their web applications for connecting people and companies. They have now some 2.5 million visitors per week each. The Jubilee Prize was given to Jack Dangermond, the founder and owner of ESRI for his and ESRI´s ability to support the use of cartography and geographic information not only in Sweden but also world-wide.

After the ceremony we went upstairs to the Golden Hall for a superb dinner served in the same manner as the Nobel Prize dinners.

Photo:

Director General of Lantmäteriet Stig Jönsson has just delivered the Map Year Prizes to Jan Procopec, Hitta and Christer Pettersson Eniro. Photo Lars Palm, lars.palm@lm.se