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A revised edition of a map originally published in 1658, in English, depicting a part of Tiszántúl and Bihar County, including Debrecen, printed in 1683 was donated to the Mayor’s Library by Lajos Kósa, a member of parliament and former mayor of Debrecen, on the occasion of the city’s day on April 11, 2025.
As Lajos Kósa said on the occasion of the donation, the interesting thing about the hand-coloured copperplate engraving is that the anti-Turkish liberation wars were already underway at that time, and the monarch needed maps that correctly depicted the territory of the Kingdom of Hungary from an administrative point of view.
The original map collection, of which this is a part, depicted the country by counties. According to Lajos Kósa, this is perhaps the first map that correctly depicts Debrecen from an administrative point of view. At that time, Hajdú County did not exist, so Debrecen was not the county seat, and Bihar County had Nagyvárad as its center. This map was produced in a small edition, showing how the Tisza River flowed irregularly before it was regulated.
On behalf of the city, Mayor László Papp thanked the donor for the gift. He said, “It is an honour that Lajos Kósa was among the founding donors of the Mayor’s Library and is constantly monitoring its development.” According to László Papp, they will proudly place this map on the library’s wall.
Source and photo credit:debrecen.hu
