Problems of contemporary Polish forest cartography

We wstępie przedstawiono ogólną charakterystykę map leśnych oraz propozycję ich podziału. Podstawową część artykułu stanowi opis problemów współczesnej kartografii leśnej na przykładzie map wykorzystywanych w nadleśnictwach. Autor podjął się próby wyjaśnienia zasadności wielu nietypowych rozwiązań, charakterystycznych dla tego działu kartografii tematycznej. W końcowej części tekstu dokonano ogólnej charakterystyki literatury związanej z kartografią leśną.The term of forest cartography has not been finally defined yet. In the past it used to mean cartographic presentations prepared for forestries. Growing demand for new types of maps, resulting from the development of the idea of multi-functional forests, together with new technologies of their preparation widened the range of meaning of forest cartography. The author concentrates on maps used by the staff of ,,State Forest" National Forest Holding: attachments to arrangement statements and maps prepared by forest authorities basing on digital maps that they use. Some of the problems mentioned in the title concern editing issues: selection of contents of forest maps according to the requirements of their users, map updating, cartographic generalization, application of particular methods of presentation and marking of geographical coordinates on maps. Other deal with more general issues: map availability, used terminology and education in the field of forest map elaboration. Only a small fraction of the issues mentioned in the text specially generalization has been more exhaustively discussed in literature, most need further research and analyses. Generally, forest cartography uses traditional graphic solutions. Despite significant technical development in the area of map production it is their contents that improves rather than the presentation method. Many characteristic solutions typical for forest cartography result from particular conditions. Those maps are prepared almost exclusively for internal use, therefore their development is more resistant to general trends. However they fulfill their role well - they are highly evaluated by their users