Abstract
The priority task of the Russian Empire, in order to successfully advance into the depths of the Kazakhsteppes, was a cartographic study. The greatest contribution to the topographic study of the territoryof Kazakhstan was made by officers of the Military Topographic Depot and members of the RussianGeographical Society. In the process of studying the history of Kazakhstan in modern times, the task ofidentifying, describing and further using cartographic sources inevitably arises. In order to successfullystudy the spatial aspects of the historical process, orienting in a huge number of maps of all kinds andtypes, as well as systematization and storage, the article analyzes classification problems and providesa brief overview of Russian cartographic materials on the history of Kazakhstan in the ХVIIIth and ХIХ thcenturies, from the collection of documents collected during the study. The classification should satisfythe logical requirement of the study. The basis for the classification of identified old maps was laid downthe main features: territorial, chronological, thematic, scale, purpose and content. In this case, first of all,the dominant feature of the map was taken into account and the classification was carried out accordingto it, additional features were secondary and filled the classification.