LibGuides: Maps: Historical maps

General / History of maps

Map history / History of cartography
Information about all aspects of early maps - web projects, images available and written texts on the history of cartography.
The history of cartography
Volumes 1-3 and 6 of the History of Cartography in PDF format, presented by University of Chicago Press. Volume 1: Cartography in Prehistoric, Ancient, and Medieval Europe and the Mediterranean; Volume 2, Book 1: Cartography in the Traditional Islamic and South Asian Societies; Volume 2, Book 2: Cartography in the Traditional East and Southeast Asian Societies; Volume 2, Book 3: Cartography in the Traditional African, American, Arctic, Australian, and Pacific Societies; Volume 3: Cartography in the European Renaissance; Volume 6 Cartography in the twentieth century. Searchable resource.
A place in history
Guide to using Geographical Information Systems (GIS) in historical research, written by Ian Gregory in 2002. It describes how to create GIS databases and how to use GIS to perform historical research.

World

Old maps online
The OldMapsOnline Portal is an easy-to-use gateway to historical maps in libraries around the world. It allows the user to search for online digital historical maps across numerous different collections via a geographical search. The search results provide a direct link to the map image on the website of the host institution.
American Geographical Society Library: digital map collection
Currently contains over 700 maps, ranging from early maps of Asia to historical maps of Wisconsin and Milwaukee, and other American cities, states, and national parks.
World Digital Library: maps
The World Digital Library (WDL) makes available on the Internet, free of charge and in multilingual format, significant primary materials from countries and cultures around the world. It includes maps, dating up to 1949.
CartoMundi
CartoMundi contains about 75 000 references of cartographic documents. They cover 194 countries and are held in about 20 map libraries.
The web site also offers more than 7500 digital reproductions. "CartoMundi - Online Promotion of the Cartographic Heritage – is developed as part of Aix-Marseille University." In French, English and Spanish.
David Rumsey Historical Map Collection
The collection has over 55,000 maps and images. It focuses on 18th and 19th century maps of North and South America, but also covers other parts of the world.
Persuasive maps
This site makes available to the public P.J.Mode's private collection of more than 800 examples of persuasive cartography, maps intended primarily to influence opinions or beliefs - to send a message - rather than to communicate geographic information. The website provides general background on the subject and links to downloadable, high-resolution images with notes on each map. The collection itself reflects a variety of persuasive tools, including allegorical, satirical and pictorial mapping; selective inclusion; unusual use of projections, colour, graphics and text; and intentional deception. Maps in the collection address a very wide range of messages: religious, political, military, commercial, moral and social.
Mapping Interstate Territorial Conflict: A New Data Set and Applications
Article by Kenneth J. Schultz in Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol 61, Issue 7, pp. 1565 - 1590, 2017. Describing a data set consisting of precise digital maps of regions that were the subject of interstate territorial disputes in the period 1947 to 2000. The link to the data is in the footnotes.
World War Two Newsmaps
Hosted by the University of North Texas. Newsmaps were produced by the U.S. Army Information Branch, Army Service Forces, during the 2nd World War. They include a weekly summary of activity and topical maps. There is a search box at the bottom of the page.
Historical GIS Research Network
List of major historical GIS websites plus additional relevant websites. Emphasis on British and US resources.
17th and 18th Century globes
British library article on the history of globe production, with 3D interactive models of early globes.

Europe

19th Century Ordnance Survey Ireland maps
"A collection of mainly 19th century maps of almost 150 cities, towns, and villages in the Republic of Ireland. Most are Town Plans which were surveyed at either five or ten foot to one mile scale between 1837 and 1896. The remainder were produced by enlargement of the 1/2500 maps between 1892 and 1911."
PRONI Historical Maps Viewer
Public Records Office of Northern Ireland. Search and browse a range of historical Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland (OSNI) maps and find information on sites, buildings and landmarks of historical interest.
Stanford Digital Forma Urbis Romae Project
The Forma Urbis Romae, also known as the Severan marble plan, was a map of ancient Rome. It was very large, but only 10-15% survives, broken into nearly 2000 pieces. The project aims to piece together the fragments.
The complete Tabula Peutingeriana
Drawn in 1265, the Tabula Peutingeriana is apparently a map describing the world as it was known in Antiquity. Localities shown are connected by roads with distances marked in Roman numerals indicating the miles or, west of Lyon, the Gallic leagues.
The topography of terror
Analysis of maps of the Warsaw Ghetto, which lasted from November 1940 to May 1943. Originally a presentation by Harrie Teunissen, given at the 24th International Conference on the History of Cartography, Moscow, 2011.
Verbrannte Orte [Burnt places]
Online atlas of places where the Nazi book burnings of 1933 occurred. For each place it includes the date of the burning, a brief description of what happened and references. In German.
PetrolMaps: Mapping the history of oil company road maps in Europe
Gives a brief history of Road Maps issued by, or in association with, petrol and oil companies in Europe. Indexes by brand or country. Includes parts of North Africa.

Rest of the world

Digital South Asia Library: maps
Resource for historical research. Also includes reference resources, images, books and journals as well as maps. Maps include samples of early maps and maps from the Imperial Gazetteer of India, 1908-1931. Hosted at the University of Chicago.
Old Survey of India maps
A collection of historical maps produced by the Survey of India from 1750 to the present day, with scales ranging from 1:1,000,000 to 1:50,000. Covers south Asia including India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Burma and Nepal.
Antique maps of China
Maps from the Special Collections of The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology Library.
Afriterra
"The AFRITERRA Foundation is a non-profit Cartographic Library and Archive assembling and preserving the original rare maps of Africa in a definitive place for education and interpretation". Includes data about the maps, together with more than 500 scans of maps of Africa. Maps date from 1480 to 1900.
Great Lakes maps
Historical maps of the Great Lakes and charts from the U.S. Lake Survey of the 1870s, available through zoomify and download. Audio commentary also available as both audio and video podcast, both online and through iTunes.
Kitchener's survey of Cyprus 1878-1883
Site is in Greek, but the map is in English, published in 1882 - "A trigonometrical survey of the island of Cyprus". Developed by the Department of Geography, Harokopio University, Cyprus.
Map search: National Library of Australia
National Library of Australia. Includes thousands of historic Australian maps - topographic, tourist, cadastral or parish (showing property boundaries and administrative areas), planning and geological. They are overlaid on a modern base layer.

Great Britain

A vision of Britain through time
Shows Great Britain during the period between 1801 and 2001, using maps, statistical information and historical descriptions. Data can be downloaded by the UK academic community, as historical maps, digital boundaries (shapefiles) or historical statistics. It is the result of an ongoing project based at the University of Portsmouth, the Great Britain Historical Geographical Information System (GBHGIS)

Digimap This link opens in a new window
Historic Digimap rovides access to old Ordnance Survey maps of Great Britain, from 1843 to1991. Scales included are 1:1250, 1:2500, 1:10560/1:10 000, and they can be compared on screen, printed, or downloaded to use in a GIS. The 1930s Dudley Stamp land use maps of Britain are also available through Environment Digimap. Digimap requires an institutional login.

Please note: By accepting the licence you are agreeing to the terms and conditions listed in the End User Licence Agreement (EULA).

Map data of Great Britain comprising ten datasets:

-Ordnance Survey Digimap (including Scottish Improvement Service data)
-Historic Digimap
-Geology Digimap
-Marine Digimap
-Environment Digimap
-Aerial Digimap (including Lidar Digimap)
-Global Digimap
-Society Digimap
-Verisk Digimap (formerly Geomni)
-agCensus Digimap

Data can be downloaded to use with appropriate application software such as GIS or CAD, or as maps generated by Digimap online using the Roam facility.

Using Roam you can:

-View maps of any location in Great Britain at a series of predefined scales
-Print maps at a variety of scales and sizes
-Add your own annotations

Coverage details:

-Ordnance Survey Digimap offers MasterMap - the most detailed current map dataset
-Ordnance Survey Digimap includes Digital Terrain Model data for download.
-Ordnance Survey Digimap includes Scottish Improvement Service data, 37 datasets from Scottish local authorities, available for download only.
-Historic Digimap provides access to 1:10 560, 1:2500 and 1:1250 data from 1846-1996; two maps of the same area can be compared on screen at once.
-Geology Digimap provides access to bedrock and Quaternary geological maps at scales of 1:625 000, 1:250 000 and 1:50 000.
-Marine Digimap includes hydrographic charts and marine themes data
-Environment Digimap includes land cover data for 1997, 2000 and 2007 from the Centre of Ecology and Hydrology.
-Aerial Digimap includes aerial imagery in a single seamless coverage, captured since 2000, at 25 cm resolution.
-Aerial Digimap includes access to Lidar Digimap - download Lidar data for use in GIS and CAD applications.

More about Digimap

Help and guidance
Digimap help can be found in the Digimap Help Centre, including links to help you get started and help for GIS/CAD users. Digimap Help pages can be accessed without logging in to Digimap.
Guides, exercises and case studies can be found on the Digimap learning materials page
Short videos about aspects of using Digimap can be found at EDINA Digimap Youtube channel
For help and guidance on licensing and copyright see the Digimap copyright & licensing page.

Current awareness
To keep up to date with what is happening with Digimap, follow Digimap on Twitter or Facebook, or look at the Digimap Blog

Map images at the National Library of Scotland
Access and view over 91,000 maps as high-resolution, colour, zoomable images. The maps date between 1560 and 1961 and relate primarily to Scotland. Maps of areas beyond Scotland, including maps of England and Great Britain, Ireland, and Belgium are also available.
New Popular edition maps
Mosaic of one inch to the mile maps of Great Britain published in the 1940s.
The Unveiling of Britain
Part of the British Library's online gallery. Shows some of the maps in the British Library Map Library dating from about 850 to 1601.
British Historic Towns Atlas
Vol.s 1, 2 and 3 of this atlas are available to download. Towns covered include: Banbury, Caernarvon, Glasgow, Gloucester, Hereford, Nottingham, Reading, Salisbury, Bristol, Cambridge, Coventry, Norwich and City of London (to 1520). The remaining volumes are available in the Library at OVERSIZE--MF 911.42-BRI.
Cambridge Air Photos
Cambridge Digital Library. The print archive includes records of coastal change, discoveries of archaeological sites and the pre-and post-industrial landscapes of Britain. The print archive comprises 497,079 aerial images, dating from 1945 to 2009, and includes both vertical and oblique aerial views of British landscapes, in both black and white and colour, and slides. The initial relese of digital images comprises about 1,500 images.
Are we there yet? Maps and map-making
The Archives Hub provides a single point of access to nearly 20 000 descriptions of archives held in more than 150 UK universities and colleges.
The Gough map of Great Britain
The Gough Map is internationally-renowned as one of the earliest maps (14th century) to show Britain in a geographically-recognizable form. This website presents an interactive, searchable edition of the Gough Map, together with contextual material, a blog, and information about the project and the Language of Maps colloquium
Visualising urban geographies
A project that provides mapping tools for historians. It enables them to use digitized and geo-referenced maps in conjunction with historical information based on either addresses or districts. It focuses on Edinburgh.
Maps for researching house and building history
Maps are key documentary sources for researching buildings and houses. This page highlights how maps can shed light on a building’s history as well as the area that surrounds it. Created by the National Library of Scotland, but the examples are useful generally.

Berkshire

Berkshire Record Office: maps
Established in 1948 to locate and preserve records relating to the county of Berkshire and its people, and to make them available for research to anyone who is interested in the county's past. Maps and plans held include tithe, enclosure, estate, Ordnance Survey and other printed maps.
New landscapes: enclosure in Berkshire
Provides access to historic manuscript maps and documents online. The maps and land awards on this site show the process of enclosing the common fields of the county of Berkshire between 1738 and 1883. Run by Berkshire Record Office.
Reading (historic towns atlas)
The Reading pages from the British historic towns atlas, first published in 1969. Text written by Dr C.F. Slade.

London

Charles Booth's London
Charles Booth's London enables you to search the catalogue of over 450 original notebooks from the Inquiry into Life and Labour in London (1886-1903), view 41 digitised notebooks and explore the London poverty maps. The site is hosted by the London School of Economics, which holds the original archive. Print version is available at OVERSIZE--MF 309.1421-CHA in the Library.
Agas map of early modern London
Civitas Londinum is a bird’s-eye view of London printed in about 1561. It is widely known as the "Agas map," from a spurious attribution to surveyor Ralph Agas (c.1540-1621) and hosted at the University of Victoria, Canada.
London medieval murder map
Produced by the Violence Research Centre, University of Cambridge. Locations of 14th Century murders are plotted onto two alternative base maps.
Layers of London
Map-based history website developed by the Institute of Historical Research. A collection of digitised historic maps, photos and crowd-sources histories provided by the public and key partners across London.
Panorama of the Thames project
Collection of panoramas and videos, showing features along 52 miles of waterway. Panoramas date from 1549, 1616, 1647, 1829 and 1849. modern photographic panoramas date from 2014.
Locating London's past
Allows you to search a wide body of digital resources relating to early modern and eighteenth-century London, and to map the results on to a version of John Rocque's 1746 map. Includes records of crime, poor relief, taxation, elections, local administration, plague deaths and archaeological finds.