Tip of the Week – Ravenstein Atlas of Germany  

Courtesy of the University of Wisconsin an on-line version of Ludwig Ravenstein’s important “Atlas des Deutschen Reichs” published in 1883 is available to all and absolutely free.  In addition to Germany, the maps of this atlas also cover the bordering portions of present-day Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Hungary, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Poland, the Russian Federation, Slovakia, and Switzerland. Even small towns can be located in this very detailed atlas.

There are 30 pages of index/gazetteer (namen-register) pp i-xxx, followed by 4 pages of statistics pp xxxi-xxxiv ,  and finally 11 map sections Ia, Ib, IIIa, IIIb through map section IX. Once you locate your town in the gazetteer portion, proceed to the map and quadrants cited in the gazetteer entry.

Navigating at this site is a little cumbersome and less than intuitive so here’s an example using a search for the town of Offenburg.    Proceed to the site:

https://uwdc.library.wisc.edu/collections/german/ravenstein/

•Click on the   BROWSE THE ATLAS
•Search for word or phrase within this work   Offenburg          Search

That returns 2 matches :
• “Namen-Register Page xix”   and
• “Statistische Page xxxiv”

Click on Page xix ; that displays a useless thumbnail of page 19 in the gazetteer, but above that you’ll see a PDF (154.8B) ; clicking on that opens the 30 page PDF of the gazetteer (takes a little while). Using the arrow, proceed to page 19 and find the Offenburg entry which cites map VII F6.  Back out of this PDF.

Click on the top line “Ravenstein, Ludwig Atlas des Deutschen Reichs”  which will take you to the contents page; find [Map section VII] and click on it. Again it opens a useless thumbnail of the map, but above that is the PDF(14.4MB) you need to click on. Voila, that displays a very detailed map you can Zoom In and Zoom Out at will.  This should keep you entertained for a while.