Nineteenth-Century Urban Cartography and the Scientific Ideal: The Case of Paris

Nineteenth-century Parisian cartography was marked by the emergence of a new cartographic genre: the specialized atlas of the city. This genre was linked to a change in the function assigned to urban maps. Before the French Revolution, the plans of Paris had been shaped by either the desire to portray the city and its singularity or the quest for accuracy in the representation of its layout. In contrast, nineteenth-century plans and atlases reflected the ambition to understand the city according to the light provided by the various natural and social sciences. This article explores the different kinds of maps and atlases produced throughout the nineteenth century in relation to this ambition. Of special interest in this respect are the Bertillon family's thematic maps based on statistics gathered by the Parisian administration.