Referring to a book by A. Eriksen (Oslo 2007) the author discusses the development of the Norwegian historiography of the 17th–18th centuries and attempts to determine the role played by the so called “topographers”, who represented the antiquarian and/or erudite approach to historical writing.

In the research on historic, composed green areas various computer technologies are applied, including among others reconstruction ideograms and virtual spatial models. They are created on the basis of historical cartographic materials, among which Prussian maps Urmesstichblatts and Messtischblatts deserve special attention as they provide extraordinarily useful and often otherwise unavailable information concerning the system of spatial composition.

The article presents a method of procedure on the example of selected research objects. Such studies are extremely useful in the process of research, analyses and documentation of the authentic state of historical sites. Moreover, they provide a significant material for further analyses concerning revalorisation and creation of the cultural landscape.

Works connected with execution of geodesic and photogrammetric surveys and with setting up maps in the scale of 1:5000 of environs of the Polish Polar Station on the Isbjörnhamna Bay and in the scale of 1:500 of the area covered with buildings of the Station are discussed.

A topographic map 1:12,500 scale of the SSSI No. 8 and the Arctowski Station region was prepared during the XXV Polish Polar Expedition (2000/2001) organized by the Department of Antarctic Biology, Polish Academy of Sciences. The map documents geomorphological changes which took place during the last 20 years. Several new place names have been introduced for the SSSI No. 8 area.

The article discusses the monitoring of horizontal displacements of the channel of Dniester, the second largest river in Ukraine, based on topographic maps, satellite images, as well as geological, soil and quaternary sediment maps. Data pro-cessing has been carried out using the geographic information system ArcGIS. The monitoring over a 140-year period (1874–2015) has been performed at the river’s transition from a mountainous to plain terrain on the 67 km section of the river. During this period, maximum displacements in the study area were 590–620 m. The research examines water protection zones needed for channel displacements. The article describes the monitoring methodology and analyses changes over a pe-riod of 18 years (2000–2018). The analysis includes the anthropogenic influence on the channel in the monitoring area. Results of the research may be useful for construction and cadastral works related to the channel in the area concerned, as well as for water management.

Soil sealing is a threat to soil and its ecosystem services. One of the main drivers of soil sealing is land degradation resulting from the expansion of urban areas, where it leads to such problems as the growing risk of flooding and local inundations, urban heat islands, or water shortages. The article focuses on analyses and quantification of the general degree of soil sealing in 2012–2018 in eight functional urban areas (FUA) in Poland, taking into account their division into the urban core (UC) and the commuting zone (CZ). We used the high resolution layer imperviousness density (HRL IMD) data to quantify soil sealing as well as data on land cover and land use with different spatial resolutions, i.e. from the European Urban Atlas project (UA) and the National Database of Topographic Objects (BDOT10k) to quantify artificial surfaces. The research determined the spatial differentiation of UCs and CZs in terms of the degree of soil sealing. We further observed higher average growth of sealed land in CZs. Quantitative and spatial analyses determined the spatial patterns of soil sealing in the FUA in Poland. Soil sealing intensified from 2012 to 2018. The process should be expected to continue in the coming years in light of the continuous transformation of vegetated areas into artificial ones. The conclusions should be considered valuable for the implementation of the spatial policy concerning sustainable land use and soil protection in suburban areas.

Whereas Wincenty Pol’s topographical verse has usually been viewed as an expression of a ‘sentimental geography’, this article proposes a new reading of a well-known poem A Song about Our Land by Wincenty Pol in terms of ‘imagined geography’, a key term of an approach inspired by geopoetics and postcolonial studies. ‘Imagined geography’ refers to a poetic map, i.e. travelogue laced with motifs from the repository of national heritage. Its images, reshaped by the writer’s imagination, form an ideologically charged whole in which an emotive sense of place or scenery (‘touching the heart’) uncovers a complex cultural stratigraphy of the ‘imagined geography’. In the light of this approach, based on the insights of geopoetics, Wincenty Pol’s poem can be treated as textual representation of a map of the real and the symbolic territory of Poland.

The integration of geodetic and photogrammetric data has become a new tool that has expanded the existing measurement capabilities, as well as it found its application outside the geodetic sector. As a result, over the past decades, the process of topographic data acquisition has caused cartographic industry to move from classical surveying methods to passive and active detection methods. The introduction of remote sensing technology has not only improved the speed of data acquisition but has also provided elevation data for areas that are difficult to access and survey. The aim of the work is to analyse consistency of elevation data from the Georeference Database of Topographic Objects (Pol. Baza danych obiektów topograficznych – BDOT500) with data from airborne laser scanning (ALS) for selected 15 research areas located in the City of Kraków. The main findings reveal discrepancies between elevation data sources, potentially affecting the accuracy of various applications, such as flood risk assessment, urban planning, and environmental management. The research gap identified in the study might stem from the lack of comprehensive investigations into the consistency and accuracy of elevation data across different databases and technologies in urban areas. This gap highlights the need for a thorough examination of the reliability of various data sources and methods of urban planning, disaster management, and environmental analysis. The integration of diverse databases and technologies, like ALS and geodetic measurements, in various applications introduces potential discrepancies that can significantly impact decision-making and outcomes.

The problem of Hungarian identity is one of the themes of Stanisław Vincenz’s essays written at the time of the Second World War. Inspired by Wincenty Pol’s thinking about relationship between the sense of geographical place and literature, he decided to explore the ‘general impact of landscape’ and in particular identify the place that would convey the essence of ‘Hungarianness’. The article looks at various aspects of this problem in Vincenz’s essay ‘Landscape – the background of history’ in the context of his other essays in which the idea of place is discussed. In effect, the article lays down a theoretical formula of indeterminate spots in modern literature. The indeterminate spot possesses six constitutive features: changeability and transmutability; fuzzy borders; shifty positioning between utopia and atopia; great semantic potential; the experience of place is involved in irreducible inconsistencies but rests on a solid ideological foundation.