Belgium's "Nationaal Geografisch Instituut-Institut Géographique National" (IGN) recently received an award for Excellence in Cartography for its 1:50,000 map of Antwerp at the 20th annual conference of the International Cartographic Association (ICA).

The prize-winning map (right) was among 150 entries submitted from 30 countries. It was the result of the structuring and interactive generalization of a 1:10,000 vector database with ArcInfo software.

The automatic symbolization of the resulting 1:50,000 map was performed with the Mercator software developed by the Belgian firm Barco Graphics NV. The map was further processed by the Symbolisation Unit of the Cartographic Department at IGN. The lettering and marginal information was produced with software from the French firm Lorienne S.A. (LORIK).

The 1:50,000 map is part of the NATO military map series. IGN is very proud of its award from the ICA, all the more because IGN comes under the Ministry of Defense and is presently involved in a digital mapping project on behalf of the Armed Forces to produce a 1:100,000 digital map of Belgium, based on the 1:50,000 data. By the end of this year, the whole of Belgium will be mapped with 1:50,000 digital vector and raster data and maps of the same quality as the award-winning map of Antwerp.

For more information on the IGN map products, especially on the structuring, generalization, and symbolization of the 1:50,000 digital data, please visit www.ngi.be.