SK, Banská Bystrica – Slovakian Map Museum

Our tip for a family trip today will be the Slovak Map Museum in the village of Kyncelová near Banská Bystrica. They will acquaint you not only with the rich past and exceptional present of cartography in Slovakia, but also with traditional and modern methods and technologies by which maps are created.

The uniqueness of this museum lies not only in the content of its exhibition, but also in its form. It was based on the principles of the global trend of enriching experiences for visitors through interactivity, advances in high technology and modern principles of education. So when visiting the museum, you will be able to try, for example, a sand relief model with augmented reality.

There Is No Sand Like Sand...

Every visitor to the museum can become a landscape creator for a while, try to create a mountain or, conversely, the sea. In essence, it is a simple "box" with very fine sand, which, based on surface sensing, allows a computer program to draw not only contour lines, but also altitude using hyposmetry (surface coloring). You can also make a rain cloud over the landscape and then monitor the behavior of water in the ground.

Extraordinary Attractions

Other attractions of the museum include the so-called fun cartography, where you will create a map of a model country in a fun way, both in the past (with your hands) and on a computer, as it is done today. You will also learn how the painter proceeds and what are the individual stages of production of a painted map, what is geodesy, what does a surveyor, whether the globe is really a sphere and last but not least you will learn about the development of maps in the world and in Slovakia.

New Collector Items, Family Tickets, and Vouchers for Culture

Relatively new exhibition additions include: Škorpil's road map from 1930, which contains valuable advice on how to safely get to your destination and save on oil and petrol, military maps used by Slovak soldiers operating in the UNPROFOR peacekeeping mission during the armed conflict in Bosnia and Herzegovina, a map of the town of Banská Bystrica from 1960 without drawing Sliač Airport (then state protection), and even a map of Europe from 1942, which points to the time when the Czechoslovak Republic ceased to exist.

A discounted entrance fee is prepared for multiple families or families with a larger age difference of children. You can also pay with vouchers for culture.

Although the Slovak Map Museum is small, it is still considered an institution of supraregional significance, a popularization-educational and cultural-technical attraction, unique not only on a Slovak scale, but also in the whole area of Central Europe.

Here you may find virtual tour through the museum.

GPS: 48°45'07.8"N 19°11'13.6"E

Source and photos: PR, CBS publishing archive

Edited by: Infoglobe