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HotgeospatialintelligencefromaColdWar:theSovietmilitarymappingoftownsandcities

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Hot geospatial intelligence from a Cold War: the Sovietmilitary mapping of towns and citiesAlexander J. Kent a & John M. Davies ba Department of Geographical and Life Sciences , Canterbury Christ Church University ,North Holmes Road, Canterbury , Kent , UKb 16 Charteris Road, Woodford Green , London , UKPublished online: 22 May 2013.

To cite this article: Alexander J. Kent & John M. Davies (2013) Hot geospatial intelligence from a Cold War: theSoviet military mapping of towns and cities, Cartography and Geographic Information Science, 40:3, 248-253, DOI:10.1080/15230406.2013.799734

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Hot geospatial intelligence from a Cold War: the Soviet military mapping of towns and cities

Alexander J. Kenta* and John M. Daviesb

aDepartment of Geographical and Life Sciences, Canterbury Christ Church University, North Holmes Road,Canterbury, Kent, UK; b16 Charteris Road, Woodford Green, London, UK

(Received 18 February 2013; accepted 17 April 2013)

As part of its secret military mapping program the Soviet Union produced large-scale maps and plans of hundreds of townsand cities around the world. The end of the Cold War and the subsequent fall of communism saw the eventual closure ortransformation of cartographic factories in the former Soviet republics, and, for the first time, these highly detailed productsof geospatial intelligence became available to a wider audience. This paper focuses on maps and plans of non-Soviet townsand cities that were produced from the 1940s to the 1990s. Through a comparison of their style and content withcontemporary cartographic and documentary sources, it aims to examine the key questions of how and why they weremade, before exploring their possible strategic value.

Keywords: Soviet military mapping; Cold War; geospatial intelligence

Introduction

During the Cold War, the Military Topographic Directorateof the Soviet Army General Staff conducted a secret topo-graphic mapping program at a high level of detail and cover-age around the globe. Although the true extent of the Sovietcartographic enterprise is yet to emerge, the increasing avail-ability of map sheets (typically from commercial vendorswithin former Soviet republics and satellite states) suggeststhat this was probably the most comprehensive global topo-graphic mapping project ever undertaken. It is impossible todetermine exact coverage without access to original produc-tion records or cataloges, however, the availability of globaland regional map indexes together with map sheets at1:15,000,000, 1:2,500,000, 1:1,000,000, 1:500,000, and1:200,000 scales, with further territories (including areaswithin the British Isles) covered at 1:100,000 and 1:50,000scales, provide sufficient evidence of its general scope (Watt2005; Cruickshank 2007, 2010).

Sheet numbering is based on the alphanumeric systemadopted by the International Map of the World (IMW), inwhich the globe is divided into equal-sized zones based uponlatitude and longitude. Each zone is further subdivided so thatthe position of a sheet – at the full range of scales – can bededuced. The maps at each scale were produced to a standardspecification and used Cyrillic script, ensuring a high level ofconsistency across the whole project and around the globe.Users of these maps would have found this standardizationparticularly helpful, especially as the symbology adopted by

different national mapping organizations varies considerably(Kent and Vujakovic 2009). Indeed, the availability of topo-graphic mapping at such a wide range of scales would havebeen useful in supporting a full range of military activities,from devising regional strategies to reading the “going” (tra-versability) of terrain for directing land forces.

In addition to the global topographic mapping programmentioned above, a secret cartographic initiative has alsocome to light – the production of street plans of towns andcities around the world at larger scales, such as 1:25,000,1:15,000, 1:10,000, and 1:5,000. Examples within Europeinclude Warsaw, Berlin, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Tirana,Paris, and London (over 90 towns and cities are known tohave been mapped in the British Isles alone), together withmany others lying further afield, such as New York, LosAngeles, Dakar, and Luanda. A substantial quantity of mili-tary plans were recovered from an abandoned Soviet Armydepot in Cēsis, Latvia by a local map seller, who advertisedthis newly acquired stock at the 16th InternationalCartographic Conference held in Köln, Germany, in 1993.Seizing the opportunity, many Western map dealers quicklybegan to source their own supplies and followed suit.Although their discovery was soon mentioned in relevantcartographic studies (e.g., Collier et al. 1996) and they havesince attracted greater focus (e.g., Davies 2005a, 2005b; Watt2005; Lee 2009), Soviet military plans have received verylittle attention from the academic community. This is surpris-ing, considering the gulf between their original

*Corresponding author. Email: alexander.kent@canterbury.ac.ukThis article was originally published with errors. This version has been corrected. Please see Erraatum (http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15230406.2013.813207)

Cartography and Geographic Information Science, 2013Vol. 40, No. 3, 248–253, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15230406.2013.799734

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circumstances of production and their widespread availabilitytoday, but even more so in terms of their historical value as atestament to the level of cartographic achievement that wasattained during the Cold War.

This paper aims to provide a general introduction tothe Soviet military town and city plans that were producedfrom the end of the Second World War until the early1990s. By drawing upon examples from around the globe,it attempts to make some common observations regardingtheir overall appearance and stylistic evolution. Aspects oftheir content are examined in comparison with contempor-ary sources in order to address the questions of how andwhy the plans were made. Finally, the paper explores thepossible strategic value of these Soviet military town andcity plans given their historical and political context.

Style and content

General characteristics

One uniting characteristic of the Soviet town and city plans,whether they were made during the closing stages of theSecond World War or in the twilight years of the SovietUnion, is the high level of original topographic detail theyinclude. It is clear that the Soviet plans are not simply geo-metric manipulations of locally produced material – theywere created afresh, with many examples (e.g., Utrecht, TheNetherlands and Oxford, England) exhibiting a contour inter-val of just 2.5 meters. Annotated enlargements of OrdnanceSurvey (OS) maps, by comparison, routinely formed part ofthe German Planheft dossiers compiled during the SecondWorld War – military-geographical assessments of countriesor regions, which also included photographs of objects thatwere regarded as strategically significant.

The Soviet approach was far more radical. Under theheading “ГЕНЕРАЛЬНЫЙ ШТАБ” (General Staff),which usually appears at the top of the plans and theword “СЕКРЕТНО” (secret) in the top-right-hand corner,each plan was produced to a comprehensive style specifi-cation. This incorporated a standard set of symbols, type-faces, and colors, using a common projection (GaussKrüger, divided into zones 3° wide), ellipsoid(Krassovsky 1940), datum (Pulkovo 1942), and rectangu-lar grid. Toponyms (including street names, both on themap and as a separate alphabetical and grid-indexed list)are given in Cyrillic script. These conventions ensured alevel of consistency whatever and wherever the town orcity mapped. Strategic objects are identified and high-lighted, and also named and arranged alphabetically in alist that can be cross-referenced with the plan (this compi-lation would have relied upon the availability of the finalobject list before it was set on the plan). Another regularfeature is the “СПРАВКА” (description); a written com-mentary on the town or city that includes relevant infor-mation such as its population, soils and terrain, andsignificant industries, together with practicalities such as

its places of shelter, healthcare facilities, and notingwhether local rivers freeze during the winter.

With considerable variation in size and format, the pro-duction specification allowed a large degree of flexibility.The makers of the plans therefore determined the best solu-tion for covering the shape and extent of each town or city atthe required scale. Where more than one sheet was necessaryto cover the necessary geographical extent, such as the planof New York which comprises eight sheets, the area withinthe neatline (i.e., the mapped surface) was designed as asingle, coherent whole – each of the sheet’s margins couldbe cut away to form a composite. The title of the plan, whereextending to more than one sheet, would therefore appearuninterrupted and centered across the plan. Accompanyingthe title (usually directly below) is the alphanumeric refer-ence of the corresponding 1:100,000 topographic map sheet.

The overall cartographic style and detailed symbologyof the plans seems to have evolved in stages, each offeringa more sophisticated representation of the urban land-scape, and, in particular, a more detailed classification ofstrategically important buildings. The earliest Soviet mili-tary plans to become available, such as that of Sari, Iran(printed in 1944) (Figure 1), employed fewer colors (i.e.,light brown, dark brown, light blue, dark blue, and green),with important buildings represented using a cross-hatchpattern in dark brown overprinted with blue to make themappear more prominently.

The introduction of further printing plates can be seenon the plan of Baden, Switzerland (1950) (Figure 2), whichuses red for buildings constructed from stone, yellow forwooden buildings, a light tan to represent the general urbanarea, light green for vegetation, dark brown for lettering andlinework, and light and dark blue for showing hydrology.The method of highlighting important buildings is retained,i.e., overprinting a cross-hatch pattern. By the time the planof Belfast was produced, in 1964, different shades of brownwere in use to distinguish between prominent buildings andneighborhoods (or blocks) that are more or less denselybuilt-up (Figure 3).

By the early 1970s, the range of color plates hadincreased to ten (i.e., light blue, dark blue, light green,dark green, light yellow, orange, purple, gray, brown, andblack), which facilitated an extension of the symbologyand allowed three major categories of important building(i.e., military and communications; governmental andadministrative; and military-industrial) to be shown(Figure 4). This color scheme is used on most of theSoviet plans that have become available since 1993, i.e.,those produced during the 1970s and 1980s, and thescheme remained in use into the 1990s. Together, thesemethods provided an effective visual summary of theurban character of the town or city and its surroundings,and it was therefore possible, at a glance, to see thenumber and location of strategic features within the townor city. The black military-industrial objects, such as

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railway stations and factories, for example, immediatelystand out. Typically, the numbering of strategic objectsbegins with the airport, if present (usually depicted ingreen), due to the alphabetical listing rather than its havingany particular strategic significance.

Compilation and production

The date and factory of production of each plan are providedin a unique code that is embedded within the outer border,

usually at the bottom right. As earlier codes were moreexplicit by prefixing the various elements with abbreviations,it is possible to identify the sheet series, job number, month,year, and factory due to the level of consistency – bothgeographically and historically (Figure 5a and b).

It is likely that the compilation of material leading tothe production of such detailed plans of foreign towns andcities would not necessarily have included a full range ofup-to-date sources. Where cartographic source material isindicated, typically, such information comprises the scaleand year of the source map, placed in the bottom right-hand corner of the plan. Indigenous topographic mappingwas routinely evaluated by the Soviet military(Cruickshank 2008) and would have been undoubtedlyused among other types of sources to inform some of thecontent of the plans, but the successful launch of the firstZenit satellites by the Soviet Union from 1962 (Norris2008) saw an increased reliance on reconnaissance ima-gery. Hence, there are fewer references to cartographicsources on the Soviet plans from the 1970s as this topo-graphic mapping satellite program developed.

The compilation of source material probably involvedbringing together a fragmented collection of old and newmaps, street atlases, trade directories, and, where avail-able, recent imagery. Over the fifty-year period of produc-tion of the plans described here, some patterns emerge, aswell as evidence of considerable disparity in the currencyof the information used. Some Soviet plans, such as the

Figure 2. Extract from Soviet 1:10,000 military plan of Baden,Switzerland, 1950 (not to scale).

Figure 1. Soviet 1:10,000 military plan of Sari, Iran (1944) (reduced).

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1975 plan of Manchester, England, depict urban develop-ments which were not yet shown on the latest topographicmapping (suggesting that imagery was used), whilst

others, such as the 1972 plan of Leeds, England, fail toprovide an up-to-date picture (suggesting that the onlysource data available were old maps or out-of-date ima-gery). One particular cartographic source that was used incompiling the Soviet plans of British towns and cities wasthe OS County Series at six-inches-to-the-mile (1:10,560),published with various revisions between the 1930s and1950s. These OS maps show an array of spot heights infeet and almost all the Soviet plans include height valuesin the same locations but converted to meters, to onedecimal place. Subsequent British maps omit many ofthe spot heights or show different values, while metricOS maps show heights as whole numbers.

Street names sometimes provide clues to the datasources that were used. In many cases, street names aremissing in areas of new housing or industrial develop-ments, suggesting that their layout was plotted fromimages before the street names were known. Where streetsare named, which was the usual practice, the names appearto have been derived from local street atlases. Localnames, however, provided other causes of confusion forthe compliers. One problem was distinguishing betweentoponyms (i.e., place names) and topographic descriptions(i.e., functions), which sometimes resulted in the latterdenoting the former, such as “Lorry Park” on the 1989plan of Cambridge, England. Another issue for the produ-cers of the Soviet plans to overcome was the translitera-tion of place names into Cyrillic to give an approximatelocal pronunciation. For example, the plan of Leicester,

Figure 3. Extract from Soviet 1:10,000 military plan of Belfast, Northern Ireland, 1964 (not to scale).

Figure 4. Extract from Soviet 1:10,000 military plan ofAntwerp, Belgium, 1985 (not to scale).

Figure 5. (a) Print code from Soviet military plan of Sari, Iran,1944 (enlarged). (b) Print code from Soviet military plan ofRotterdam, The Netherlands, 1981 (enlarged).

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England is entitled “ЛЕСТЕР” and that of Dijon, France isheaded “ДМЖОН”.

The later Soviet plans have extensive, but generallyincomplete, details of the ownership and product of fac-tories. These are classified as “objects of military-indus-trial interest”, which are colored black, identified andnumbered on the plan, and listed in an accompanyingschedule. Two further categories of strategic object areclassified as “governmental and administrative” (coloredpurple) and “military and communications” (coloredgreen). The former includes local and central governmentand other official premises such as police stations, townhalls, and university buildings. The latter includes postoffices, airports, and hospitals, as well as barracks, andother military establishments. For all three categories,many of the items are not identified on state topographicmaps and the information is likely to have been derivedfrom freely available trade directories and local guide-books, or even first-hand observations (which is difficultto prove). For example, the construction material, length,width, clearance, and carrying capacity of bridges aresometimes indicated, where known (Figure 6), and it isunlikely that these data could have been gleaned remotely,whether from imagery or indigenous sources.

The inclusion of precise hydrographic data presentssomething of an enigma. Many rivers, estuaries, ports,and harbors included on the Soviet plans have detaileddepiction of depths, channels, and sandbanks. Only invery few cases do these resemble the information givenon official charts. One method of acquiring these datawould be ship-based survey, but this is unlikely to havebeen possible in all the estuaries and ports around the

world and certainly to a consistently high level ofdetail.

Strategic value

The time, effort, and resources required to produce eachSoviet military plan raises inevitable questions about theirintended use, especially at a time when MAD (mutuallyassured destruction) from nuclear weapons was consideredto be a real possibility. Moreover, the resemblance of anytown or city to its depiction on the plan after a nuclearstrike would have been so negligible as to render suchinformation useless. One alternative military scenario wasthe Soviet “blitzkrieg” ground invasion of WesternEurope, intended to overpower NATO defenses and secureenough ground in enough time to dissuade the UnitedStates from using nuclear weapons in fear of Soviet reta-liation (MccGuire 1987). If the important objects on theSoviet plans are taken to be strategic targets (for example,the highlighting of military, communications, governmen-tal, administrative, and military-industrial sites), it is pos-sible to see how this information could support a militarycampaign. Moreover, the combination of a rectangularprojection that preserves bearings on the plans withindexed grids would certainly facilitate targeting by artil-lery. As Psarev (2005, 49) mentions, with regard toRussian military mapping:

“City plans are created for the territories of cities, majorrail hubs, naval bases, and other important populatedplaces and their surroundings. They are designed for

Figure 6. Extract from Soviet 1:25,000 military plan of New York, USA, 1982 (not to scale) indicating the construction material,clearance of truss above water, and lengths of the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges (metal; 39 m, 41 m; and 1060 m, 1800 m,respectively).

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detailed study of cities and their approaches and fororientation, performance of accurate measurements,and calculations in the organization and conduct ofcombat […].”

Enemy military installations, however, are not the maintheme of these plans. It is likely that other, perhaps moresecret, plans were made showing the locations of militarysites (such as missile silos and military communicationshubs) that would have been targeted in a counterforcestrike against NATO. The omission of tactical militarytargets supports the view that the Soviet plans couldhave been intended for civil administration after a success-ful coup, rather than exclusively for planning a militaryassault.

As products of a military cartographic tradition, theSoviet plans of towns and cities serve one purpose – thecompilation and presentation of the best geospatial intelli-gence in the clearest way, regardless of their eventual use.To this end, the global extent of their reach and the wealthof detail they represent would have provided support for avariety of operations.

Conclusion

The free availability of Soviet military plans of towns andcities of around the world for the first time in 1993 hasprovided a special insight into the cartographic proficiencyof a former superpower. At the very least, the Soviet plansoffer a very different view of a familiar landscape. Astopographic inventories, each provides both a palimpsest

and a fleeting glimpse of what Soviet occupation couldhave meant. It is hoped that this paper will stimulatefurther cartographic research into Soviet military mapping,the true extent of which is yet to emerge.

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