Title: Austria-Hungary

Description

The Austro-Hungarian Empire (1867-1918) was a multi-ethnic, multi-lingual empire governed by a dual monarchy that exercised Habsburg rule across Europe’s second largest sovereign territory. Although considered a Great Power in the concert of European nations, the empire was internally divided by internecine quarrels among its national minorities and ultimately broke up under the strains of World War I. This 1906 Rand McNally map shows the empire in the decade before its dissolution. William Rand founded the company that became Rand McNally in Chicago in 1856, initially to print guidebooks and directories. In 1858, he hired Andrew McNally, who became his business partner ten years later. The company soon became a prolific publisher of atlases, maps, globes, and travel guides. Its commercial success was largely due to its adoption in 1872 of a wax engraving process known as cerography and by its nearly simultaneous development of the popular Pocket Maps, of which this map is an example.