The contemporary cartographic presentation of geographical names of objects lying on the border between Poland and the Czech Republic

The aim of this paper is the analysis of the names used on cartographic publications in Poland and the Czech Republic for transboundary geographical objects lying on the common boundary.

After the analysis of the Czech and Polish topographic maps that are available on the national geoportals, maps of the divisions into natural regions, and toponymic databases (Polish the National Register of Geographical Names, and Czech Geonames – the Database of geographic names of the Czech Republic) it was established that 360 named geographic objects lie on this boundary. This number includes: 123 hydronyms (names of rivers and other streams), 224 oronyms (139 names of summits, 22 names of mountain passes, 35 names of mountain ranges and ridges, 15 names of highlands, plateaus and uplands, 7 names of mountain basins, valleys and depressions, 3 names of lowlands, and 3 names of rocks), 9 names of forests, 1 name of mountain meadow (alp), and 3 names of tracks.

212 of these objects (59%) have names in both languages – Polish and Czech, however, in 99 cases (47% of objects that have name in both Polish and Czech languages) the Polish and Czech toponyms entirely do not correspond to each other. From the remaining objects 67 (18%) have only the Czech name, and 81 (23%) only the Polish name. In some natural regions, the limits of their ranges set by the Czech and Polish geographers vary widely, for example a single region on one side of the boundary corresponds to two or more regions on other side of the boundary. In other cases illustrations of incorrectness are more sophisticated, like the river that has different course according to the Czech or Polish maps (stream regarded as a main watercourse in one country, which has its own name, in another country is considered as a tributary one with a different name).

In the summary, it should be stated that in the large part of the Polish and Czech names of the geographical objects lying on the common boundary were drawn regardless of the names used in the neighboring country.