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This detailed and finely engraved map of the Austrian Empire, drawn by Carl Ferdinand Weiland and published in 1834 by the Geographisches Institut in Weimar, presents the sprawling Habsburg Monarchy at its territorial height, nearly fifteen years before the Revolutions of 1848 would begin to fracture its imperial coherence. Covering the lands from Lombardy and Venice in the west to Galicia and Bukovina in the east, the map offers a comprehensive administrative and topographical portrait of one of Europe’s most complex multinational states.
Relief is rendered with dense hachuring that vividly conveys the topography of the Alps, Carpathians, and Dinaric ranges. Provinces and crownlands are distinguished in delicate original outline color—yellow for Lombardy-Venetia, green for Illyria, blue for Styria, red for Tyrol, and others—providing legible political divisions without overwhelming the tonal balance of the engraved field. Major and minor cities are classified by population and typographic hierarchy, explained in a detailed legend at upper right. Symbols denote fortresses, castles, universities, and mountain peaks, while an inset table at lower right gives population and area statistics for each province, including the Military Frontier.
A set of six linear scales, converting geographic miles, Austrian miles, Hungarian miles, Prussian miles, and French leagues, underscores the cartographic sophistication and practical orientation of the sheet.
Weiland’s General-Karte provides a remarkably precise and aesthetically restrained snapshot of the Habsburg realm in the years between Metternich’s post-Napoleonic settlement and the coming upheavals of nationalist and liberal unrest. The map preserves a moment when Vienna still ruled a continuous Adriatic coastline, when Hungary extended across the entire eastern basin, and when German, Italian, Slavic, Magyar, and Romanian lands were united under a single imperial structure.
![Elegantissimus a parte Orientali Oenipontis prospectus. [An exquisitely beautiful view from the eastern part of Innsbruck.]](https://storage.googleapis.com/raremaps/img/small/94422.jpg)