This 1822 map of Kursk 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 (seven gradations by size), postal stations, roads (four types), provincial and district borders, forts, monasteries, and factories. 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. Kursk was probably founded as a Slavic settlement before the 11th century, although it had been inhabited by nomadic peoples for a millennium. The Kursk region was immortalized in the Lay of Igor’s Host, an epic medieval poem about a local ruler who unsuccessfully battled the nearby Polovtsians. In the 19th century, the composer Alexander Borodin created an opera, Prince Igor, based on this poem. Over the centuries Kursk was beset by invasions by the Mongols, Poles, Lithuanians, and Crimean Tatars. Muscovy began to absorb the Kursk region in the late 16th century. In the 17th century, a significant number of Russians migrated into the region.