As you read this Editorial, the 2021 International Cartographic Conference has been successfully run in December 2021, in Firenze, Italy. The Associazione Italiana di Cartografia ran a hybrid conference at the School of Humanities, University of Firenze. Two cartographic exhibitions were also conducted with the conference: an International Map Exhibition, held at the Italian Geographic Military Institute, and entries from the Barbara Petchenik Children’s Map Competition, shown at the Ex Circolo di Palazzo Medici Riccardi, both situated in Firenze.
The Editors of this Journal attended and presented at the conference in-person (Anne Ruas) and virtually (William Cartwright). Both editors can attest that the conference was a wonderful event, with marvellous venues for face-to-face events, complemented by technology that supported presenters and participants who were at the venues or participating digitally.
Despite the difficulties that the pandemic posed to the organizers, the international response was truly amazing. More than 600 participants were registered for the conference – almost equally divided between those at the conference venue and those joining remotely – from more than fifty countries, attended over 80 technical sessions in which the conference topics were addressed.
The space in this Editorial disallows a complete synopsis of the papers published in this issue. However, for completeness, the contents of the issue are provided below.
The place names of the Aragonese maps. Interpretative hypotheses, landscape readings and methodological proposals – Pierluigi De Felice, Fernando La Greca and Silvia Siniscalchi.
Neural Map Style Transfer Exploration with GANs – Sidonie Christophe, Samuel Mermet, Morgan Laurent and Guillaume Touya
Rebankment: Displacing Embankment Lines from Roads and Rivers with a Least Squares Adjustment – Guillaume Touya and Imran Lokhat
National High Resolution Land Cover and Land Use Information System – Julián Delgado Hernández and Nuria Valcárcel Sanz
Presence of the school cartography in Erwin Raisz’s lifework – José Jesús Reyes Nunez
‘Hack The Map’, a digital educational program inspired by Rigas Velestinlis’ Charta of Greece (1796–1797) – Maria Pazarli, Kostas Diamantis and Vasiliki Gerontopoulou
Accessing Spatial Knowledge Networks with Maps – Markus Jobst and Georg Gartner
Gaining overview with transient focus+context maps – Daria Hollenstein and Susanne Bleisch
Perspectives about implementation of colour codes on maps accessible to blind people – Niédja Sodré de Araújo, Luciene Stamato Delazari, Amanda Pereira Antunes and Andrea Faria Andrade
Mapping, synthesis and visualization of Czech dialects – Vit Vozenilek, Martina Ireinova, Alena Vondrakova and Jakub Konicek
Column: MAPS IN HISTORY – Renaissance door maps in Florence – Imre Demhardt
As well, papers from the conference, not published in this Journal (Issues 7.3, 2021 and 8.1, 2022) are accessible via the International Cartographic Association’s publications Web repository: https://icaci.org/publications/. The virtual map exhibition can accessed at www.geografia-applicata.it/icc-2021-virtual-exhibition/ and the Children’s map exhibition can be seen at https://vanderkrogt.net/petchenik/index.php and at observo360.com/icadrawingexhibition.
The success of ICC 2021 will be judged over time. With certainty we can say that the variety of topics covered and the quality of the works presented demonstrated the need to continue providing key fora like these, so that the international community of scientists and professionals in Cartography and GIScience are able to meet – physically, virtually or as part of a hybrid conference like ICC2021 Firenze – where they can engage in discourse and continue to report on their endeavours that address key issues in our discipline. This allows us to grow and disseminate knowledge gleaned from research, development, educational endeavours and professional activities.