Karelia’s maps
Funded by Euregio Karelia Neighbourhood Programme 2001-2006

Objective of the project

The project's goal was to update the map information pertaining to the Republic of Karelia produced in different types of environmental projects and to make the map information and related availability, use and pricing information available to Finnish and Russian users.

Main activities

• to create a network between Finnish and Russian users. • The project was to further refine the existing large-scale material for the use of agencies as direction maps, in particular for the needs of the border region's environment-oriented projects. • to promote co-operation between officials and on border waters and would benefit the EU's water policy framework directive's implementation as well as directive co-operation on border area waters.

Achievements

The project assembled map information from Finnish map producers and projects. Information was sought from the internet from map producers' websites and databases. A particular focus was placed on Russian map industry entities, which were contacted through Finnish co-operation projects, companies and private individuals as well as through project introduction events in Russia. The project obtained freely circulated maps from Finland and Russia in vector format in co-operation with the Lapland Regional Environment Centre. The maps contained diverse information regarding the Republic of Karelia on a general map level. The raw data was transformed to a format that could be used by the location programmes and the material was further refined into vector-level output for the internet regarding The Republic of Karelia's demographics, road network, lakes, rivers, railways and borders. The project worked in close co-operation with the Alexander Institute's Northern Dimension Advisory Network and the map information researched in the project was posted on the network's KareliaInfo website (www.kareliainfo.org/kartat). Due to its largescale, the material was public domain by nature, meaning it was freely available for non-commercial use. Using the material described above, a map of the Republic of Karelia and its nearby areas, promotional posters containing maps for nature, travel and history projects promoting Russia co-operation, a map of the Pielinen flood run-off area, maps of the northern Karelia biosphere area and planning maps for the development of similar activities in the Republic of Karelia were created. In addition, Landsat satellite images of the Republic of Karelia were obtained from the internet and the joint use of ASTER images was negotiated with the University of Joensuu. The project received information from Petrozavodsk State University regarding theme maps they had created, their pricing and availability as well as general national-level map series information from the Republic of Karelia. The project also implemented a CD map service for its own use using an internet browser. A larger scale (1:200, 000) typography map of the target area can be selected for viewing from the main small-scale background map of the Republic of Karjala.