High-mountain cartography of the German and the Austrian Alpine Clubs

For 100 years now, the German and the Austrian Alpine Clubs have been producing their own maps of the high ranges of the Eastern Alps, because, to this day, suitable official maps of all their mountain areas are not available. As far back as 1912, Alpine Club cartographers participated in the development of the photogrammetric surveying method and applied this to the rugged mountain terrain. Since 1935, contour lines have been included in the rock representation of the maps. Starting 1967, aerial photogrammetry was used to establish the topographic foundation for map production and to achieve both high-quality geometrically controlled delineation of rock and differentiated representation of surface vegetation. Since 1935, in addition to maps of the Eastern Alps, Alpine Club cartography has produced maps of extra-Alpine high mountain ranges. In recent years, Alpine Club cartography has concentrated almost entirely on updating existing maps. The "Arbeitsgemeinschaft fur vergleichende Hochgebirgsforschung," associated with the German Alpine Club (DAV), has published numerous maps of the high ranges in Nepal. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.