The Cholnoky Map Collection from Cluj-Napoca / Kolozsvár (Romania)
The collection was established in 1884 and later built up by Jenő Cholnoky. Professor Jenő Cholnoky was one of the greatest Hungarian geographer, head of the institute at Francis Joseph University of Kolozsvár (Austro–Hungarian Monarchy) between 1905 and 1919. His photograph collection and the map collection of his institute were maintained and enlarged a little (by Emmanuel de Martonne and Gyula Prinz), but disappeared in the 1950s. The remains of the collection were discovered in 2001. Since 2001, the collections are maintained by the Cholnoky Geographical Society.
The photo collection contains over 5000 individual photos dating from the beginning of the 20th century (administrator of the photo collection: Zoltán Imecs, zimecs@yahoo.com). Most of the photographs were taken by Cholnoky in Transylvania, but hundreds of photos also come from his travels to other continents such as China and the United States.
The map collection was cataloged between 2006 and 2008 under the supervision of Bartos-Elekes. The map collection contains 6500 items. Of these, 3200 are chorographic and thematic maps, 3150 (mostly Austrian) topographic map sheets, and 150 atlases. The oldest maps date from the 17th century, but most of the maps is from the 19th century, and there are also some valuable manuscripts in the collection. This collection of historical maps can be considered one of the largest collection of historical maps in Romania.
The website of the Photo Collection (in Hungarian)
Studies about the Map Collection (in Hungarian and in English)
Old site: browse and download digitized maps and atlases (in Hungarian)
New site: search, browse and download digitized maps (in Hungarian)
Administrator: Zsombor Bartos-Elekes (bezsombor@yahoo.com)