User:ProfessionalGoObEr/Comisión Geográfico-Exploradora

The Comisión Geográfico Explorada was a political and military organization which was responsible for surveying, mapping, and quantifying territory of Mexico from 1877 to 1910. They were also responsible for the creation, manufacturing, and distribution of these maps, as well as playing an important part in the training and employment of future Mexican politicians and military leaders.

The CGE's first office in Xalapa, Veracruz.

History

The Comisión Geográfico Explorada (CGE) was a cartographic agency created by Agustin Diaz, the commissions first leader. This came about because of a direct order from Porfirio Diaz in 1877 to his minister of development, demanding he appoint a commission to review the state of Mexican geography. According to the work of Raymond B Craib, Agustin Diaz reviewed some 500 odd maps and determined that the standardization on the maps was so bad, that the whole collection was useless because they could not be compared to or used with each other. As such, Agustin Diaz suggested to Porfirio Diaz that the state start over, and create a new agency from scratch. Shortly after the commission officially came into existence with Agustin Diaz as its head, it had the goal of systematically creating a master map of Mexico at a scale of 1:100,000. In order to do this, they had to collect all the necessary data entirely themselves, doing all the necessary fieldwork measuring distances, fixing control points, and taking astronomical measurements with the most up to date techniques, and with the most modern (and expensive) equipment.

Early years

Due to financial challenges faced by Porfirio Diaz's new regime the Comisión Geográfico Explorada, started out as a very humble organization. It had just 9 employees, very limited amounts of equipment, capital, or means of transportation. Due to the organizations limited resources, and because it was based in Mexico city, Agustin Diaz decided to begin work on Mexico's master map in and around the city of Puebla. This secured its reputation and demonstrated the organizations crucial role to the Mexican congress, so that in 1881 the organization had moved its base of operations to Xalapa Veracruz. By the 1884-1885 fiscal year, its budget had nearly doubled, allowing the CGE to set up its own map production offices

C G E's established place in the Mexican government

In order to deal with the growing manpower concerns of the CGE, the Mexican government made service in the CGE a requirement for graduation from the Mexican military academy. This had the effect of 1) solving the manpower problem for the CGE, and 2) ensuring the majority of officers who were hand picked by Porfirio Diaz out of the CGE to be mayors, governors, and other regional powerbrokers, were fairly competent and well equipped to perform well in their new positions. This system also shows the CGEs integration into Porfirio Diaz's political system. As the CGE became a more established institution, and completed more and more of their cartographic work, they began to produce more products for use in Mexico and beyond. The CGE would produce everything from small maps for use in municipals, to carta generals which would be displayed at events such as world fairs.

Map created and published by the CGE

Late years

By the time that Mexico was on the brink of revolution, the CGE was a well developed organization with deep bureaucratic roots. The organization now had enough cartographers and equipment to accomplish multiple different cartographic tasks in different states, all at the same time. It also had fully developed assembly lines for the maps and charts they made, with the geographic information they had archived immensely useful in the day to day operation of the government. unfortunately though it would not last as the start of the Mexican revolution would soon bring about with the fall of Porfirio Diaz's government and eventually the CGE's office in Xalapa Veracruz would be occupied and turned into a military barrack which would effectively lead to the end of the organization.