After the Second World War, cartography and surveying services in a number of European countries start working for civil industry, but still were largely focused on maintenance of the army. Private cartography in Europe has significantly changed its face. Rapid development of road transport and tourism caused a huge demand for travel and tourist maps, designed for thousands and even millions of users that on top of that were significantly cheaper in creation compared to military maps.

A strong impact to the development of mapping technologies in Europe had the Cold War. Cold War - global geopolitical, military, economic and ideological confrontation during the 1947-1991 years between the USSR and allies - on the one hand, and the United States and its allies - on the other. Technological breakthrough in cartography resulted from the space race: were launched satellites for remote sensing and surveying, initiated a program for a global positioning system.

In the mid-20th century in the Soviet Union was created and completed more than 100,000 topographic maps of different scales, which by their accuracy had no equal.

German and Austrian military services have released more than 3,000 maps of the territories of Germany, Poland, Austria.

Polish Military Geographical Institute was also active in mapping, issuing new maps, as well as republishing maps created during the First and Second World Wars.