Alexander James Kent (born 24 August 1977) is a British

cartographer Cartography (; from , 'papyrus, sheet of paper, map'; and , 'write') is the study and practice of making and using maps. Combining science, aesthetics and technique, cartography builds on the premise that reality (or an imagined reality) can ...

geographer A geographer is a physical scientist, social scientist or humanist whose area of study is geography, the study of Earth's natural environment and human society, including how society and nature interacts. The Greek prefix "geo" means "earth" a ...

and academic, currently serving as Vice President of the International Cartographic Association. He leads the Coastal Connections Project for World Monuments Fund and

English Heritage English Heritage (officially the English Heritage Trust) is a charity that manages over 400 historic monuments, buildings and places. These include prehistoric sites, a battlefield, medieval castles, Roman forts, historic industrial sites, Lis ...

and is honorary Reader in

Cartography Cartography (; from , 'papyrus, sheet of paper, map'; and , 'write') is the study and practice of making and using maps. Combining science, aesthetics and technique, cartography builds on the premise that reality (or an imagined reality) can ...

and Geographical Information Science at

Canterbury Christ Church University Canterbury Christ Church University (CCCU) is a Public university, public research university located in Canterbury, Kent, England. Founded as a Church of England college for teacher training in 1962, it was granted university status in 2005. ...

(CCCU) and also a senior research associate of the

Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies The Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies (OXCIS) was established in 1985 as an independent centre affiliated with the University of Oxford, focused on advanced research into Islam and Muslim societies. The Prince of Wales serves as its patron. In 20 ...

at the

University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...

. From 2015 to 2017, Kent served as president of the British Cartographic Society and has held fellowships of the

Royal Geographical Society The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers), often shortened to RGS, is a learned society and professional body for geography based in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1830 for the advancement of geographical scien ...

since 2006 and of the British Cartographic Society since 2002. In 2020, he became a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and a senior fellow of the (UK)

Higher Education Academy Advance HE (formerly the Higher Education Academy) is a British charity and professional membership scheme promoting excellence in higher education. It advocates evidence-based teaching methods and awards fellowships as professional recogniti ...

and in 2022, was elected Fellow of the

Royal Society of Arts The Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, commonly known as the Royal Society of Arts (RSA), is a learned society that champions innovation and progress across a multitude of sectors by fostering creativity, s ...

. Kent's scholarly contributions have focused upon cartographic

aesthetics Aesthetics (also spelled esthetics) is the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature of beauty and taste (sociology), taste, which in a broad sense incorporates the philosophy of art.Slater, B. H.Aesthetics ''Internet Encyclopedia of Ph ...

and topographic mapping, particularly Soviet maps, which led to the publication of ''The Red Atlas'' in 2017 (

University of Chicago Press The University of Chicago Press is the university press of the University of Chicago, a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois. It is the largest and one of the oldest university presses in the United States. It pu ...

). Co-authored with John Davies, the book provided the first general guide to Soviet military mapping - the world's most comprehensive cartographic project of the twentieth century.

Early life and education

Designing maps, board games and banknotes from an early age, Kent's decision to study cartography at university was largely inspired by a seventeenth-century estate map of

Lyminge Lyminge is a village and civil parish in southeast Kent, England. It lies about five miles (8 km) from Folkestone and the Channel Tunnel, on the road passing through the Elham Valley. At the 2011 Census the population of Etchinghill, Kent ...

that hung in his father's study as Rector of the parish. After graduating from Queens' College, Cambridge, he undertook doctoral research to analyse stylistic diversity in European topographic mapping at the

University of Kent The University of Kent (formerly the University of Kent at Canterbury, abbreviated as UKC) is a Collegiate university, collegiate public university, public research university based in Kent, United Kingdom. The university was granted its roya ...

Career

Kent became head of the Cartographic Unit at the School of Geography,

University of Southampton The University of Southampton (abbreviated as ''Soton'' in post-nominal letters) is a public university, public research university in Southampton, England. Southampton is a founding member of the Russell Group of research-intensive universit ...

before his appointment as Senior Lecturer in

Geography Geography (from Ancient Greek ; combining 'Earth' and 'write', literally 'Earth writing') is the study of the lands, features, inhabitants, and phenomena of Earth. Geography is an all-encompassing discipline that seeks an understanding o ...

and GIS at

. Kent took up his role as Reader in Cartography and Geographic Information Science in 2015, where his projects involved the digital reconstruction of

Anglo-Saxon The Anglo-Saxons, in some contexts simply called Saxons or the English, were a Cultural identity, cultural group who spoke Old English and inhabited much of what is now England and south-eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. They traced t ...

Folkestone Folkestone ( ) is a coastal town on the English Channel, in Kent, south-east England. The town lies on the southern edge of the North Downs at a valley between two cliffs. It was an important harbour, shipping port, and fashionable coastal res ...

for a Heritage Lottery funded project to discover the life of St Eanswythe, a local seventh-century saint, as well as advising on geospatial projects for the UK Commission for

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO ) is a List of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) with the aim of promoting world peace and International secur ...

and on Soviet mapping at the Centre for the Changing Character of War at Pembroke College, Oxford. In 2023, he took up his current role in leading the Coastal Connections Project for World Monuments Fund and

, a global initiative to share and develop strategies for addressing the impacts of

climate change Present-day climate change includes both global warming—the ongoing increase in Global surface temperature, global average temperature—and its wider effects on Earth's climate system. Climate variability and change, Climate change in ...

on coastal heritage sites worldwide, and became an honorary Reader at CCCU. Kent joined the British Cartographic Society in 2000 and the Society of Cartographers shortly after. He served as president of the British Cartographic Society from 2015 to 2017 and has been Editor of '' The Cartographic Journal'' since 2014. Kent has been a committee member of the Charles Close Society for the Study of Ordnance Survey Maps since 2008 and founded the Ian Mumford Award for excellence in original cartographic research by students for the British Cartographic Society in 2015. Kent became a Fellow of the British Cartographic Society in 2002 and of the

in 2006. In 2011, he was appointed deputy national delegate for the UK to the International Cartographic Association (ICA) General Assembly and was vice chair of the Commission on Map Design for the Association from 2011 to 2015. He became the founding chair of the ICA Commission on Topographic Mapping in 2015, and in 2017, founded the World Cartographic Forum (a body within the ICA for leaders of national mapping societies to discuss common issues and share best practice). In 2021, he became the UK National Delegate to the ICA General Assembly and in 2023 was elected an ICA Vice President. In 2020, Kent became a senior fellow of the UK

and a

Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London The Society of Antiquaries of London (SAL) is a learned society of historians and archaeologists in the United Kingdom. It was founded in 1707, received its royal charter in 1751 and is a Charitable organization, registered charity. It is based ...

. He was elected Fellow of the

in 2022.

''The Red Atlas''

On joining the Charles Close Society for the Study of Ordnance Survey Maps, Kent met John Davies, a retired systems analyst based in London who had published a paper in the Society's journal ''Sheetlines'' in 2005. Davies and Kent embarked on a period of joint research and collaboration with the aim of finding out more about

Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

mapping during the

Cold War The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...

, which they went on to describe as 'the biggest cartographic story never told'. After publishing a series of academic papers, the

Bodleian Library The Bodleian Library () is the main research library of the University of Oxford. Founded in 1602 by Sir Thomas Bodley, it is one of the oldest libraries in Europe. With over 13 million printed items, it is the second-largest library in ...

at Oxford invited them to submit a proposal for a short book as an introduction to the subject and eventually offered the project to the

. ''The Red Atlas'' was published in 2017. ''

Nature Nature is an inherent character or constitution, particularly of the Ecosphere (planetary), ecosphere or the universe as a whole. In this general sense nature refers to the Scientific law, laws, elements and phenomenon, phenomena of the physic ...

'' called the book a "glorious homage" and it featured as the Book of the Week in ''

THE ''The'' is a grammatical article in English, denoting nouns that are already or about to be mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The ...

'', where Jerry Brotton described it as "Brilliant... the best kind of cartographic history".

Mark Monmonier Mark Stephen Monmonier (born February 2, 1943) is a Distinguished Professor of Geography and the Environment at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs of Syracuse University. He specializes in geography, geographic information syst ...

praised the book as "carefully researched, well-written, and exquisitely designed and printed, it's perhaps the only recent map history that can be called a real eye-opener". In 2019, a paperback version of ''The Red Atlas'' was published in Japanese by Nikkei

National Geographic ''National Geographic'' (formerly ''The National Geographic Magazine'', sometimes branded as ''Nat Geo'') is an American monthly magazine published by National Geographic Partners. The magazine was founded in 1888 as a scholarly journal, nine ...

Inc. Kent gave interviews to several national Japanese newspapers in

Tokyo Tokyo, officially the Tokyo Metropolis, is the capital of Japan, capital and List of cities in Japan, most populous city in Japan. With a population of over 14 million in the city proper in 2023, it is List of largest cities, one of the most ...

in July that year while attending the 29th International Cartographic Conference. Davies and Kent have presented their research at the Lenin Library in

Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...

, the

National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) is a combat support agency within the United States Department of Defense whose primary mission is collecting, analyzing, and distributing geospatial intelligence (GEOINT) to support national se ...

Washington, DC Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and Federal district of the United States, federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from ...

, the universities of

Oxford Oxford () is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and non-metropolitan district in Oxfordshire, England, of which it is the county town. The city is home to the University of Oxford, the List of oldest universities in continuou ...

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a List of cities in the United Kingdom, city and non-metropolitan district in the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It is the county town of Cambridgeshire and is located on the River Cam, north of London. As of the 2021 Unit ...

and

Manchester Manchester () is a city and the metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester, England. It had an estimated population of in . Greater Manchester is the third-most populous metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, with a population of 2.92&nbs ...

, and at

Eton College Eton College ( ) is a Public school (United Kingdom), public school providing boarding school, boarding education for boys aged 13–18, in the small town of Eton, Berkshire, Eton, in Berkshire, in the United Kingdom. It has educated Prime Mini ...

, where they were invited by the Slavonic Society in 2019. Martin Davis, one of Kent's PhD students at

, has researched the holdings of Soviet military city plans in libraries around the world and produced a detailed analysis of the plans' symbology. In 2021, ''The Red Atlas'' was featured by the Map Men in an educational video about Soviet mapping, which became the third highest trending video on

YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...

shortly after it was released on 11 January.

Awards and honours

* Society of Cartographers Award for an outstanding contribution to the Society of Cartographers (2016) * Henry Johns Award for the most outstanding paper published in '' The Cartographic Journal'' ( British Cartographic Society) (2010) * New Mapmaker Award for excellence in cartographic scholarship (

National Geographic Society The National Geographic Society, headquartered in Washington, D.C., United States, is one of the largest nonprofit scientific and educational organizations in the world. Founded in 1888, its interests include geography, archaeology, natural sc ...

/ British Cartographic Society) (2007)

Selected works

Books

*''The Routledge Handbook of Geospatial Technologies and Society'', Abingdon: Routledge (2023) *''Mapping Empires: Colonial Cartographies of Land and Sea'', Cham: Springer Nature (2019) *''The Red Atlas: How the Soviet Union Secretly Mapped the World'', Chicago: University of Chicago Press (2017) *''The Routledge Handbook of Mapping and Cartography'', Abingdon: Routledge (2017) *''Landmarks in Mapping: 50 Years of The Cartographic Journal'', Leeds: Maney Publishing (2014) *''Cartography: A Reader'', Reading: The Society of Cartographers (2014) *''A Celebration of 50 Years of the British Cartographic Society'', Ilkeston: British Cartographic Society (2013)

Chapters

*"Foreword" In Darkes, G. and Spence, M. (Eds) ''Cartography – an introduction'' (2nd ed.) London: British Cartographic Society (p. 5) *"Cartographic Aesthetics" (2017) In Kent, A.J. and Vujakovic, P. (Eds) ''The Routledge Handbook of Mapping and Cartography'' Abingdon: Routledge (pp. 299–310) *"Maps and Identity" (2017) In Kent, A.J. and Vujakovic, P. (Eds) ''The Routledge Handbook of Mapping and Cartography'' Abingdon: Routledge (pp. 413–426) *"Reproduction, Design and Aesthetics" (2015) In Monmonier, M. (Ed.) ''The History of Cartography (Volume VI: The Twentieth Century)'' Chicago: University of Chicago Press (pp. 1331–1336)

Research papers

*Cheshire, J. and Kent, A.J. (2023) "Getting to the Point? Rethinking Arrows on Maps" ''The Cartographic Journal'' DOI:10.1080/00087041.2023.2178134 *Halik, L. and Kent, A.J. (2021) "Measuring User Preferences and Behaviour in a Topographic Immersive Virtual Environment (TopoIVE) of 2D and 3D Urban Topographic Data" ''International Journal of Digital Earth'' 14 (12) pp. 1835–1867 DOI:10.1080/17538947.2021.1984595 *Kent, A.J., Davis, M. and Davies, J. (2019) "The Soviet Mapping of Poland – A Brief Overview" ''Miscellanea Geographica – Regional Studies on Development'' 23 (1) pp. 1–11 DOI:10.2478/mgrsd-2018-0034 *Pastor, D. and Kent, A.J. (2019) "Transformative Landscapes: Liminality and Visitors' Emotional Experiences at German Memorial Sites" ''Tourism Geographies'' 22 (2) pp. 250-27
DOI:10.1080/14616688.2020.1725617
*Kent, A.J. (2018) "Form Follows Feedback: Rethinking Cartographic Communication" ''Westminster Papers in Communication and Culture'' 13 (2) pp. 96–11
DOI:10.16997/wpcc.296
*Kent, A.J. (2014) "Thomas Hill's Map of Lyminge, 1685" ''Lyminge: A History'' 6 (23) pp. 1–1
PDF (ResearchGate)
*Kent, A.J. and Davies, J. (2013) "Hot Geospatial Intelligence from a Cold War: The Soviet Military Mapping of Towns and Cities" ''Cartography and Geographic Information Science'' 40 (3) pp. 248–25
DOI:10.1080/15230406.2013.799734
*Kent, A.J. (2009) "Topographic Maps: Methodological Approaches for Analyzing Cartographic Style" ''Journal of Map and Geography Libraries'' 5 (2) pp. 131–15
DOI:10.1080/15420350903001187
*Kent, A.J. and Vujakovic, P. (2009) "Stylistic Diversity in European State 1:50 000 Topographic Maps" ''The Cartographic Journal'' 46 (3) pp. 179–21
DOI:10.1179/000870409X12488753453453
*Kent, A.J. (2005) "Aesthetics: A Lost Cause in Cartographic Theory?" ''The Cartographic Journal'' 42 (2) pp. 182–18
DOI:10.1179/000870405X61487

Editorials

*Kent, A.J. (2021) "When Topology Trumped Topography: Celebrating 90 Years of Beck's Underground Map" ''The Cartographic Journal'' (58) 1 pp. 1–12 DOI:10.1080/00087041.2021.1953765 *Kent, A.J. (2020) "Mapping and Counter-mapping COVID-19: From Crisis to Cartocracy" ''The Cartographic Journal'' 57 (3) pp. 187–19
DOI:10.1080/00087041.2020.1855001
*Kent, A.J. and Hopfstock, A. (2018) "Topographic Mapping: Past, Present and Future" ''The Cartographic Journal'' 55 (4) pp. 305–30
DOI:10.1080/00087041.2018.1576973
*Kent, A.J. (2017) "Trust Me, I'm a Cartographer: Post-truth and the Problem of Acritical Cartography" ''The Cartographic Journal'' 54 (3) pp. 193–19
DOI:10.1080/00087041.2017.1376489

References

External links

''The Red Atlas'' official websiteStaff Profile
at World Monuments Fund
Canterbury Christ Church University Institutional Repository
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kent, Alexander James 1977 births Living people People from Dover, Kent 21st-century British geographers Alumni of Queens' College, Cambridge Alumni of Canterbury Christ Church University Alumni of the University of Kent Alumni of Oxford Brookes University Fellows of the Society of Antiquaries of London Fellows of the Royal Geographical Society Academics of Canterbury Christ Church University British cartographers Senior Fellows of the Higher Education Academy People from Lyminge