Abstract
Three essential periods may be singled out in the development of cartography as a science:
1. From the beginning of the last century to the mid-sixties is the period of development of cartography as a distinct science.
2. The period dating from the mid-sixties till the eighties is the golden age of development of theoretical cartography with special amplification of discussions on the subject of the theoretical fundamentals of cartography. At the end of the former period and at the beginning of the latter, cartography finally distinguished itself as an independent science. In 1959, the International Cartographic Association was founded. In 1961, the International Yearbook of Cartography was published for the first time and beginning in 1969, Polski Przegląd Kartograficzny (the Polish Cartographic Review). A year earlier, Komisja Kartograficzna Polskiego Towarzystwa Geograficznego (the Cartographic Commission of the Polish Geographical Society) was established.
3. Since the mid-eighties, and even somewhat earlier, use of new IT technologies, especially interest in the map as an element of geographic information systems, has become the dominating trend in cartography.