Atlas of Pálava protected landscape area

The Pálava Protected Landscape Area (PLA) is one of the protected areas in the Czech Republic that is characterized by both natural and cultural heritage. The Atlas of Pálava PLA presented in this article has been created as a general publication summarizing a majority of available data and information of the area in an original and uniform style. A wide range of information from geology, geomorphology, climate and hydrology, nature and its conservation, tourism and economy is presented over five thematic groups, 15 chapters and 30 maps (using mainly 1:35,000 and 1:50,000 scales), arranged alternating text and map pages to describe a theme. Various methods including (i) point, line and area symbols, (ii) choropleths, (iii) flowline maps, (iv) diagram maps and their combinations were used for the visualization of the thematic data. The uniform style of the maps was ensured by including shaded relief for the visualization of terrain, water bodies and urbanized area as a topographic base. The process of its creation included obtaining and harmonizing various types of (spatial) data (raster and vector datasets, digitizing of paper maps, correlation of various typology systems, linking of table and spatial data), planning the atlas and map concepts, using software and applying a theoretical basis of cartography, geography and geoinformatics in order to produce a complete guide of the area. The Atlas of Pálava PLA presents well-founded knowledge of the region in an easily available form, as it is available on the internet as a digital version in PDF.