摘要：The Enlightened Spanish Government, aware of the importance of navigation and explorations, felt the need to institutionalize an organization that encouraged the development of Hydrography, and thus set up the Dirección de Trabajo Hidrográficos (Department of Hydrographic Surveys) (1797). Thanks to that department a need to control the hydrographic information in Spain was met, and at the same time, its own internal operation generated a perfect information system which is described here. The most outstanding information product was the nautical designed charts, which were able to describe practically all the seas and oceans’ coastlines known up to then. Those charts, apart from being a historical document of great importance, are also a rich source of information that allows an increase of several hundreds years in a part of the existing records of the geographical, hydrographic and environmental variations of all the cartographied areas.
