Central Asia on the Cloud: Prototyping an Open Regional Atlas

Abstract

The first generation of digital, and subsequently online, regional atlases did only little to reconceptualize the idea behind this established cartographic category. Using the case study of a regional atlas for Central Asia, the authors propose a fundamental re-thinking as a usercentric and target-group-specific front end for emerging Spatial Data Infrastructures. 'Next generation' regional atlases are anticipated as open frameworks based upon distributed online services; extensible, mashable, and modifiable, flexibly adjusting to situated devices.Regional or national atlases rarely followed established principles or modelled after some blueprint, but were often tied to research initiatives resulting in unique and even outstanding products. Examples are the Salzburg-Atlas (LENDL et al. 1955), pioneering the use GI_Forum -Journal for Geographic Information Science, 1-2015. © Herbert Wichmann Verlag, VDE VERLAG GMBH, Berlin/Offenbach. ISBN 978-3-87907-558-4. © ÖAW Verlag, Wien.