The State of Bahrain National Addressing Project - Manama City Map

National Survey Directorate, Ministry of Housing for the State of Bahrain Cabinet Affairs Directorate of Statistics

Published by Al Hilal Corporation, Publicity & Press (Sole Distributors), Manama, Bahrain, 1981

About this Item

One of the earliest locally produced modern maps of Bahrain. Colour printed on both sides of a single sheet 95x70cm titled Manama North and Manama South respectively (giving a total size of @95x140cm). This folds down into colour illustrated card wraps 13x19cm containing colour maps to its interior and a booklet with 18pp English, 21pp Arabic texts presenting background information and a detailed index. Map near fine with closed fold tear where it is bound in and a pencilled label "Aramco Office" in the Industrial Area on the Manama South side with a couple of neat pencil underlines; booklet fine with some spotting; wraps very good with closed tears and creasing. This appears to be very rare with Worldcat locating only 2 institutions (OCLC 9684791: LoC; Ohio State University), and unrecorded on Library Hub.

It dates shortly after Bahrain contracted Fairey Surveys to produce an important baseline series of topographical maps on various scales (1977, with subsequent editions into the 2000s), prior to which Bahrain maps had mainly been drawn by oil companies and the British and US military.

In 1978 the Ministry of Housing established its Survey Directorate to maintain these surveys. This particular map, prepared by the Directorate on a scale of approx 1/2,500, is thus based on Fairey Surveys 1/10K (1977), Ministry of Housing development plans, and information supplied by the National Addressing Project (NAP). NAP, with the motto "To save time and effort", divided Bahrain into 11 Regions, of which Manama is No.3. Each Region was subdivided into numbered Blocks (eg, Block 320 is in Manama, identifiable by the "3" prefix). It defined a Block as a group of houses, shops, roads and lanes surrounded by avenues. Streets are classified as highways, avenues, roads, and lanes, with each road or lane number prefixed by the Block number (booklet pp2-5).

This detailed map, captioned in Arabic and English and featuring an alphanumeric grid and Block numbers, shows the various street types, zones, major buildings, mosques, public areas, private areas, parks or gardens, and water. One of the maps inside the wraps shows Bahrain's 11 regional boundaries. The index is arranged into several types of important places followed by avenues, roads and lanes. Worldcat shows that corresponding maps for other regions were issued during 1980-82.

(Reference: mapBH, "Fairey Surveys: History of modern map-making in Bahrain", 4/9/2024).

Seller Inventory # 6037

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The State of Bahrain National Addressing Project - Manama City Map
• Publisher: Al Hilal Corporation, Publicity & Press (Sole Distributors), Manama, Bahrain
• Publication Date: 1981
• Language: English
• Binding: Soft cover
• Condition: Near Fine