Haritacılık Müzesi

About Haritacılık Müzesi

The Haritacılık Müzesi (Museum of Cartography) is a second-class military museum inside the central barracks of the General Directorate of Mapping (Harita Genel Müdürlüğü), the national mapping agency attached to the Ministry of National Defence, in the Cebeci area of Çankaya. It was founded on 2 May 1971 within the agency's Higher Technical School of Mapping, starting with relief maps and examples of old and current surveying instruments. A painting gallery was added in 1978 and more instruments in 1987; the museum moved to the basement of the headquarters building in 1990, was enlarged between 1990 and 1994 with material from archives and from inside and outside Turkey, and moved into its present free-standing building in 1994. A section honouring Lieutenant General Mehmet Şevki Ölçer, regarded as the agency's founder, was added in 2003. The agency's own page counts 670 instruments, materials and maps across five sections. Highlights include relief maps made in the 1880s by students and teachers of the military academy's mapping class from sea sand, resin and wood; historical paper maps from the 19th century onwards, among them an 1896 1:10,000 map of Eskişehir and the 1:100,000 Sakarya map drawn in 20 days in 1921 during the War of Independence; geodetic, photogrammetric and cartographic instruments used since 1885; and a gallery with 22 paintings from the Yurt Gezileri tours of Anatolia organised for artists between 1938 and 1943, plus works by military painters. Practical notes: the agency says the museum is open on weekdays (excluding official and religious holidays) from 09:30 to 12:00 and 14:00 to 17:00, and entry is free. Individual visitors register at the barracks gate and need no appointment; groups should arrange their visit in writing in advance.