Real World maps of Germany

[hoggydog]

Is there a German/European equivalent of Ordnance Survey Explorer 1:25000 maps?

 

 

[Ssnake]

Yes for the data: Dhe Deutsche Grundkarte is in 1:25,000, the basis for all topographical survey maps.

 

Is it publicly available through a unified web portal?

No.

 

Why not?

That's a long story.

 

Is there a chance that this will change over the coming decade or two?

Surprisingly, yes.

[hoggydog]

So what is the most common commercially available map scale 1:50,000?

 

 

 

[Ssnake]

Uh, doesn't work that way, last time I checked.

Every state of Germany has its own Landesvermessungsamt (State Office for Land Survey). They own the digital maps that they create, and sell them at individual conditions (depending on who you are, what you want, what quality of data you're looking for, and how much of it). So, in the late 1990s they were prepared to sell a few to a few dozen km² to customers, having mostly architects as their customer base, or public road construction projects, at about 30 USD per square kilometer. The rationale being that those who would commercially exploit the public effort for land surveys should reimburse the taxpayer for it. Also, in some cases their idea of a "digital map" was a scan of a hand-drawn topographical map (groan).

 

So, I asked them for the price of a bare earth model, 6400km², 50m grid.

One Landesvermessungsamt offered me an 80% discount if I were to order an 80x80km² square, barely 40,000.- USD, and I said Thanks but no thanks.

 

 

 

As it turns out, so did everybody else.

About three or four years ago, some parliaments noted this and questioned the entire practice of trying to recoup the costs of land surveys when actually next to no data are actually being sold. So there's now a movement to give away such data, including LIDAR, for free. In some states of Germany that's already the case. Not in others. And of course, every state in Germany has their own web portal (if at all) to retrieve the data. And they probably have individual conditions of use, because, Huzzah Federalism! And it's all in German.

Now, I'm following this only from a healthy distance, so I can't give you details. This is how _I_ see it. It's not necessarily representative of reality. But I don't have the time anymore to go through all this shit. As far as I'm concerned, I'll let the dust settle, and look again in five years or so. Hopefully, by then there's LIDAR scans available of everything.

[_William]

Not sure if this is helpful, but the following two sources have been very helpful in creating game maps (not SBPro) of Germany:
- the OpenStreetMap data (as freely available from geoportal.de). With some computer skills and patience, these can be imported in QGis (especially the 2.x versions have good import capabilities) and turned into maps. Best combined with high res elevation data.
- for pure maps, some german states offer free on-line access to (historic) maps. Especially Bayern/Bavaria's BayernAtlas ( https://geoportal.bayern.de/bayernatlas/?topic=zeitr&lang=de&bgLayer=atkis&time=2008&layers=zeitreihe_tk&layers_timestamp=20081231 ) is great, and offers access to a variety of maps

William

[stormrider_sp]

I don't know exactly what kind of data you're looking for but perhaps you could check here:

 

https://geoservice.dlr.de/web/

[DarkAngel]

Also check Open street map which you can get data from and make your own maps if you have a GIS program. Also mapstor.. You have to buy the maps but the are dirt cheap (imo) https://mapstor.com/

[hoggydog]

Thanks guys. I'm guessing what i was looking for (an OS 1:25000 equivalent paper map of the Fulda area) doesn't really exist. 

 

The more I learn about Germany the more I'm intrigued. 

[stormrider_sp]

Those OS maps are a real bless. Back when I lived in London, my community library had all of them in hidden section in the back. From all countries that I lived, none were near as good, top quality as those by OS.

[DarkAngel]

[hoggydog]

That is almost exactly what I'm looking for. ( a few km over to the ENE) what is the original source?

[DarkAngel]

1:25k German military maps from Mapstor @ 1 euro each only issue is 1956

[Major duck]

I read on the danish mapping state site that its a EU thing that all member states should have 2m lidar maps available for free download and it certainly is for Denmark i just don't know how to convert that format into SB maps but the map material in the form of 2m lidar maps are freely available it would be real nice if we could just import that and have maps available i know something like buildings should still prolly be made manually they comes in 1 km x 1km grid squares so they need to be put together somehow

MD

Edited July 22, 2020 by Major duck