Central European network

The Central European Network (ZEN) is a large, frame-like surveying network over Central Europe and large parts of Eastern Europe .

The ZEN covers 1.1 million km² and is based on preliminary work by the German Army Survey , which calculated a uniform coordinate system for the conquered areas from around 1940 . Immediately after the end of the Second World War , the unified network that had begun was completed in Germany on the initiative of the US occupying power, but for computational and military reasons, it did not cover the entire area, but rather as a frame network with meshes of about 200–300 km wide made of double triangular chains. In the course of the Europanetz ( European date 1950 , ED50) it was filled from the framework to an area network .

The ZEN was the first triangulation network in the world to include more than two states. The calculation was carried out under the direction of Erwin Gigas at the Institute for Earth Measurement in Bamberg , southern Germany , largely by specialists from the former German Army Surveyors who had already been involved in data collection in the eastern countries. The results of the network, which covered a rectangle of around 1000 × 1500 km, were incorporated into the large-scale calculation of the ED50 a few years later, which, however , only included Western Europe - given the beginning of the Cold War .

See also

• Land surveying , landings , Bowie method , Laplace point , consistency
• Prussian land survey , DHDN , WGS84
• William Bowie , Karl Ledersteger , Helmut Wolf

literature

• K.Ledersteger: Astronomical and Physical Geodesy (Earth Measurement) , JEK Volume V, Chapters 21 and 27f, JBMetzler-Verlag, Stuttgart 1968.