Slovenia is well represented in the Geography & Map Reading Room, which has hundreds of single and set maps, as well as atlases, showing Slovenia or former Yugoslavia. Many maps of Slovenia are cataloged and can be identified using the Library of Congress online catalog. In addition, a significant number of maps of Slovenia from 1745 through 1970 are discoverable with collection level records. Slovenia is also depicted in single maps showing the Balkan Peninsula, of which there are over four hundred in the Geography & Map collection, half of which are cataloged individually and the other half cataloged at the collection level. Maps showing appropriate parts of Austria or the Italian Adriatic will also be relevant. All of the maps are available in the Geography and Map Reading Room and you will need to ask for assistance to view them.
Interesting examples include road maps, mountain-biking maps, maps produced by the Central Intelligence Agency in the 1990s and early 2000s related to the Yugoslav War of 1991-1995, and a map by the French cartographer Louis Brion de la Tour (1743-1803) from 1792 of the Austrian Circle within the Holy Roman Empire, including coverage of some parts of Slovenia.
A number of rare maps in the collection depict Slovenia or Carniola, such as 1570 edition of Theatrvm orbis terrarvm by Abraham Ortelius shown in the image above, with Laybach (Ljubljana) indicated on the left page at the juncture of the green and gold sections. Also of interest is the very large multi-sheet map from 1744 Ducatus Carnioliæ, tabula chorographica by Johann Disman Floriantschitsch de Grienfeld. It includes an inset map of the capital city Ljubljana (Laybach). Possibly the oldest relevant item is Martin Waldseemüller's 1516 Carta marina. Plate Two of this map shows the Balkans and identifies Lubiana (Ljubljana). From the Italian perspective is Carta dell Istria: reveduta det aumentata del Cesareo Reggio from 1803, which was a revision of an earlier map (1784) by Giovanni Antonio Capellaris. This map of Istria also contains images from ancient times of the city of Pula in current day Croatia.
For Slovenia as part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Library has digitized Spezialkarte der Österreichisch-Ungarischen Monarchie, a series of maps prepared by the Austro-Hungarian monarchy's Militärgeographisches Institut beginning around 1875, and issued in later editions up through the 1940s. In total the set contains over 1,000 maps in multiple editions. Use the graphic index following the detailed example in the Austro Hungarian section of Cartographic Resources for Genealogical Research: Eastern Europe and Russia to identify the geographic location of interest. The digitized maps are available in the manifest. Let this map of Marburg (Maribor) serve as an example of Slovenian content from this series. The set is complicated, so feel free to ask questions of the specialists in the Geography and Map Reading Room.
Maps of Slovenia from approximately 1597 to 1970Maps of Yugoslavia from approximately 1600 to 1970The Geography and Map Division (G&M) has custody of the largest and most comprehensive cartographic collection in the world with collections numbering over 5.5 million maps, 100,000 atlases, 8,000 reference works, over 5000 globes and globe gores, 3,000 raised relief models, over 130,000 microfiche/film, and a large number of cartographic materials in other formats.
