Matiss Silins (1861 – 1942) has taken a permanent place in the history of cartography of Latvia owing to his creative work but his name deserves recognition in the history of cartography of Europe. M.Silins was awarded the title of honorary member of the Geographic Society of Latvia (1926) for his contribution to the development of Latvian cartography. In all, he created and published 19 large and medium - scale maps and plans, as well as over 50 small - scale maps. The first map was published in 1889 and it depicted the network of roads in the western part of Latvia – Kurzeme. His next cartographic work the map of Latvia was also published in the same year and it was the first detailed map of Latvia published in the Latvian language. The first historic map of the territory of Baltic was published in 1890. M.Silins’ biggest cartographic work was the map of the western and northen parts of Latvia – Vidzeme and Kurzeme. It consisted of 5 sheets, made in the scale 1: 126 000. For the creation of this map, M.Silins made use of German and Russian topographic maps, and maps from „The Atlas of Livonia” (1798) by L.A.Mellin. Due to the changes in the international situation at the end of the 19th century, there was need for new political maps, and he created and published several maps, such as the map of a growing Manchuria and Korea, the map of the Far East and the map of Asia. The map of Asia was supplemented with 28 small - scale maps which gave information on nature, economy, religions in different parts of the world, colonies in America the western part of Latvia – Kurzeme, economy of Siberia. M.Silins’ cartographic activities continued until 1911 but a section of one of his maps was published still in 1913. M.Silins took an active part in different cultural and educational activities but he has especially interested in the history and ethnography of Latvia.