Ethnographic Maps

maps showing the geographic distribution of, and spatial relationships between, the phenomena and objects of study of ethnography.

There are three main types of ethnographic maps. Ethnic and historico-ethnic maps provide a picture of settlement patterns of peoples in the present and past. Historico-ethnographic maps reflect various aspects of the life of peoples and characteristic features of their traditional material and nonmaterial culture in a particular period.

Widely known are the ethnographic maps compiled in Russia by P. I. Keppen and A. F. Rittikh in the second half of the 19th century and the maps of such ethnographers as L. S. Berg and I. I. Zarubin published after the October Revolution of 1917. The Commission for the Study of the Tribal Composition of Russia and Adjacent Countries, established under the Academy of Sciences in 1917, compiled ethnographic maps of many regions of the country. The maps were of considerable help in the development of the national areas of the USSR, in particular, in the demarcation of national boundaries.

After the Great Patriotic War of 1941–45, extensive work on ethnographic mapping was begun at the Institute of Ethnography of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. The first school map of the peoples of the USSR was published in 1951; it was followed, beginning in 1956, by maps of the peoples of the Hindustan Peninsula; China, the Mongolian People’s Republic, and Korea; and Africa. In addition, a general map of the world was published. The most important historico-ethnographic atlases are the Atlas of Siberia (1961) and the atlas The Russians (1967–70).