This 1820 map of Pskov Province 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 (five gradations by size), postal stations, roads (four types), state, provincial and district borders, and monasteries. Distances are shown in versts, a Russian measure, now no longer used, equal to 1.07 kilometers. Legends and place-names are in Russian and French. Pskov is one of the oldest cities of Russia, dating from the early 10th century, an era and place of Viking influence over the formation of the first East Slavic state of Kievan Rus’. The Pskov region, long situated on the western territorial border of Russia, thus has a significant history of trade and conflict. The city fell under the sway of the neighboring Russian town of Novgorod early in its history. It was liberated from the Teutonic Knights in 1242 by Novgorodian forces under Alexander Nevsky (an event immortalized in Sergei Eisenstein’s famous film, Alexander Nevsky). Pskov, like Novgorod, had an unusual history in that during the medieval period, it was administered by a town council and had an early legal code and status as an outpost of the Hanseatic League. The importance of Pskov Province as a borderland receded after Peter the Great acquired the eastern Baltic region for the Russian Empire in the Great Northern War (1700−1721).