section_path: Types/Extremely large maps/The Great Polish Map of Scotland
section_name: The Great Polish Map of Scotland
paragraph_text: The Great Polish Map of Scotland
  
  Polish general Stanisław Maczek had once been shown an impressive outdoor map of land and water in the Netherlands demonstrating the working of the waterways (which had been an obstacle to the Polish forces progress in 1944). This had inspired Maczek and his companions to create Great Polish Map of Scotland as a 70-ton permanent three-dimensional reminder of Scotland's hospitality to his compatriots. In 1974, the coastline and relief of Scotland were laid out by Kazimierz Trafas, a Polish student geographer-planner, based on existing Bartholomew Half-Inch map sheets. Engineering infrastructure was put in place to surround it with a sea of water and at the General's request some of the main rivers were even arranged to flow from headwaters pumped into the mountains. The map was finished in 1979, but had to be restored between 2013 and 2017.