ETHNOGRAPHICAL ATLAS OF BOHEMIA, MORAVIA AND SILESIA IN THE NEW MILLENNIUM: USING HISTORICAL SOURCES AND GIS PhDr. Jin' WOITSCH, Ph.D. l Institute of Ethnology, p.r.i., Czech Academy of Sciences Na Florenci 3, 110 00, Praha 1, Czech Republic E-mail: jiri.woitsch@post.cz Abstract: In the paper the overview of the content and methodological background of the recently published and currently prepared volumes of Ethnological atlas of Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia is given. The main aim of the paper is to show, how written sources from the early modem period could help with the preparation of ethnological maps in the country, where field research of the folk culture hardly can be done at present. Secondly the very successful application of GIS (geographic information system) in the ethnological research is stressed. The very best example of fruitful utilization of both the mentioned aspects is the 5th volume of the Ethnological atlas of Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia, which deals with spatial dif- ferentiation of the Jewish settlements and professions in Bohemia. Keywords: Ethnological atlas of Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia - geographic information system (GIS) - ethnocartography - methodology - research overview - Jewish settlements INTRODUCTION The beginnings of ethnocartographic research in Europe were related to the linguistic geography that had developed since the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth century. The first systematic ethnocartographic research took place in Germany already at the end of the 1920s. The German Ethnographic Atlas (ADV 1937^10) was composed rather broadly from the territorial point of view (on the basis of ethnical principle) and also included the German regions of the then Czechoslovak Republic. The questionnaires were being sent to Czechoslovakia in the years 1929-1935. However, this method had one serious deficiency, noted by H. L. Cox (1982). On the ethnically mixed territory it mapped the selected phe- nomena only for one that is German, part of the inhabitants. After the World War II ethnocartographic research and the work on atlas directly con- 1 The text was written within the frame of the project Ethnographic atlas of Bohemia, Moravia and Sile- sia, funded by the Grant Agency of the Czech Republic, Project no. P410/11/1287.