Cadastral land-use data generalisation for the creation of large scale maps

Land-use maps are necessary for planning at the neighbourhood and municipal level as well as at the regional and country level. However, each scale requires different level of detail. Generalisation is a fundamental cartographic procedure used in map production, which allows the transition from a larger scale to a smaller one. In this research, Hellenic Cadastre parcel data at reference scale 1:2500 with land-use attributes are generalized, to produce maps in scales 1:5K, 1:10K, 1:25K. Two different approaches star and ladder generalisation were applied. The method uses a cartographic rule (the minimum map element) for the selection operator and semantic and geometric (Longest Common Boundary and Best Neighbour) criteria for the aggregation operator. The results were evaluated by estimating the changes of land-uses area after generalisation. The generalisation of the cadastral land-use data was implemented utilizing commercial software (ArcGIS) tools within Python using the ArcPy library.