Borders on the old maps of Jizera Mountain

Abstract

Old maps, mainly from the period between 1890 and 1940, have been collected in the framework of the project “Old Maps of the Jizera Mountains”. These maps provide us with a complex picture, mainly of tourism, in this currently Czech–Polish territory. The territory of the Jizera Mountains was inhabited mainly by a German-speaking population on both sides of the border until 1945. Yet it is interesting to examine how the border between the two states – in those times Czechoslovakia and Germany, now Czechia and Poland – was illustrated on these old maps. This article argues that the border was not perceived as a barrier as such until later on, mainly due to the ethnic change in the borderlands. It also reveals that the borders on the maps are of manifold nature and cannot be simply limited to the national borders.