1900 Herdliczka / Köke Physical, Topographic Map of Croatia

This is a very rare c. 1900 map by Karlo Herdliczka and F. Köke of Croatia, or, at that time, the Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia and the Kingdom of Dalmatia, both of which were subordinate to the Austro-Hungarian Empire. A physical map, it highlights topography and other elements of physical geography, especially waterways.

A Closer Look

This map covers territory that is broadly congruent with present-day Croatia, highlighting topography on both land and sea. Most prominent are the Dinaric Alps or Dinarides running northwest-southeast parallel to the Adriatic coast. At top are the Sava River and its tributaries, which themselves form a major tributary of the Danube where the two rivers meet at Belgrade. A cross-section at right provides a guide to the coloration on the map and shows height in Viennese klafter (hvati in Croatian), Viennese Fuß (stope in Croatian), and meters. Just below, scales are provided in Austrian miles, kilometers, and nautical miles. An inset towards bottom-right shows the Plitvice Lakes, with a scale of one inch to 800 hvati (klafter) and contour lines indicating 20 hvati, roughly 38 meters, of elevation.

Twilight of the Austro-Hungarian Empire

From the perspective of the present-day, the Austro-Hungarian Empire looks impossibly complex, inefficient, and ambitious, but at the time it certainly did not seem so. What ultimately doomed the empire was the rise of nationalism in the 19th century. Initially, the Dual Monarchy was able to manage these sentiments by selectively granting autonomy (including to Croatia-Slavonia and Dalamtia) and championing cosmopolitanism. Moreover, the various national movements were not initially nor necessarily disparaging of neighboring ethnic groups and even worked in concert towards shared goals (hence the rise of pan-Slavic and Yugoslav unity movements).

But in the early 20th century, solidifying national identities clashed with one another. Aside from the ethnic enclaves and exclaves that defined the Balkans, Croatia (and neighboring Slovenia) had concentrated populations of Italians. On the Adriatic, Italians formed a large portion and even a majority of the population in wealthy ports like Rieka (Fiume), Spljet (Spalato), and Zadar (Zara). These unresolved tensions would cause tremendous suffering due to ethnic violence through both World Wars and again at the end of the century with the breakup of Yugoslavia.

Publication History and Census

This map was compiled and drawn around the year 1900 by Karlo Herdliczka, a captain at the Krajina administration (Krajina means 'frontier' and was such an administration under Austria-Hungary, a mostly Serbian enclave in Croatia). As the note at bottom-right indicates, Herdliczka incorporated information from earlier maps and charts by Streffleur, Oesterreicher, and the military headquarters in Zagreb. It was lithographed by F. Köke at the Lithography Institute, a publisher, in Vienna. This map is not known by us to belong to any institutional holdings and is very scarce to the market.