Since 1992 GiziMap seem to have been able to predict exactly what maps the current political affairs required. Read about GiziMap and the maps they produce in the words of the founder herself, Gizella Bassa.
I finished my degree in cartography in 1969 and I have been working in mapmaking ever since. For seventeen years I worked for Cartographia Budapest as an editor on map projects for different parts of the world and for five years after that I was team leader on various projects.
Following the political changes I decided to set up a private map publishing company. Until then Hungary had only had a state-owned Cartographic Survey and setting up a commercial enterprise was a new experience for me and my fellow cartographers.
In 1993 a map of Estonia, the first GiziMap map, was published. Bartholomew in Edinburgh and MapLink in Santa Barbara bought this map and included it in their map series. I had done plenty of surveying and cartographic work but I needed more familiarity with publishing and marketing the products. Among the most educational experiences were the three months I spent at Oregon State University on a scholarship sponsored by the Soros Foundation in 1991 and working with Christian Legind of Folia, Denmark, on the project for a map of Norway which has been reprinted many times.
Following the first edition of our Central Asia map in 1999, we have been dedicating more and more of our time and energies to Asian countries. There is a traditional interest in Asia within Hungarian cartography and geography. While working on our map of Northwest China we studied the maps of Aurel Stein and during the preparation of the Tibet map we rediscovered the work of Sándor Körösi Csoma. Of course we keep up to date with the work of foreign cartographers and read all contemporary travel guides and travel-related literature and spend a large amount of time travelling in the countries and regions we are mapping.
The idea behind my maps is to create accurate and attractive maps, "pictures" of the world.
GiziMap is a small group of cartographers but we invite contributions and advice from linguists, geographers, geologists, travel writers and generally people who have travelled extensively around the countries we are working on.
Every year we have a stand at the Frankfurt Book Fair and there we show our new maps and meet our customers. Among them Stanfords plays a very important role. I like the atmosphere of the Stanfords shop and I am always impressed by the large variety of maps it stocks. I am proud to be able to add to this range.
Author: Gizella Bassa
Date: 1 January 2003
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