This 1823 map of the Land of the Don Cossacks is from a larger work, Geograficheskii atlas Rossiiskoi imperii, tsarstva Pol'skogo i velikogo kniazhestva Finliandskogo (Geographical atlas of the Russian Empire, the Kingdom of Poland, and the Grand Duchy of Finland), containing 60 maps of the Russian Empire. Compiled and engraved by Colonel V.P. Piadyshev, it reflects the detailed mapping carried out by Russian military cartographers in the first quarter of the 19th century. The map shows population centers (seven gradations by size), postal stations, roads (four types), provincial and district borders, monasteries, factories, and forts. Distances are shown in versts, a Russian measure, now no longer used, equal to 1.07 kilometers. Legends, the index of regional names, and place-names are in Russian and French. The Land of the Don Cossack Host was established as an autonomous republic in southern Russia at the end of the 16th century. This region had been settled by numerous peoples since Antiquity, including the Scythians, Sarmatians, Khazars, and Polovtsians. The Mongols of the Golden Horde maintained nominal control over the region until the late 15th century, after which increasing numbers of Slavs moved into the area. The Cossacks were Slavic settlers who were semi-independent from the central government, but also critical to the protection of the borderlands and expansion of the Russian state. The Cossacks proved unmanageable at times, and produced three leaders of the most serious peasant rebellions in the tsarist period: Stenka Razin (real name Stepan Timofeevich, died 1671), Kondraty Bulavin (died 1708), and Yemelyan Pugachev (died 1775).