This map of the city of Palma de Mallorca, in the Balearic Islands, was drawn by Benito Chías y Carbó using information provided by the city council and published by Alberto Martín in 1910. It is currently held in the Map Library of the National Geographic Institute.

This map documents one of the city’s most significant periods of urban transformation. Palma’s city walls had been demolished between 1902 and 1910, with the exception of the Plataforma del Rosario, opposite the cathedral, thereby freeing up a great deal of land on which new housing had been prohibited for centuries. In this context, Bernardo Calvet had designed the expansion plan bearing his name in 1901: a radial grid with ring roads where the moats had once been, and radial avenues leading to the outlying districts.

In 1910, when this map was published, the Eixample district existed almost entirely on paper. Development took place slowly over several decades and was not completed until 1940, when it reached the extent shown on this map. In 1910, the city expansion was still more of an intention than a built reality.

Sources

• Palma (Mallorca). Town maps. 1910