Besides
estate and boundary maps, a set of little-known parish maps was created
in the middle of the 18th century, with Central Finland well represented.
A grandiose programme for the production of geographical maps was launched
in Sweden-Finland at least in part inspired by a scientific expedition which
worked in the River Tornio valley under the leadership of de Maupertuis,
a Frenchman. In 1737-1747 and in 1748 surveying commissions operated in
Finland, making maps of more than a hundred Finnish parishes on the scale
1:20 000. The area that was roughly mapped consists of parishes from the
eastern border to Central Finland. The majority of the maps are kept in
the Swedish state archives. Despite various efforts the maps have not been
handed over to Finland. In Sweden there are parish maps dealing with nearly
100 Finnish parishes, whereas in the Finnish national archives these amount
to 30.
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