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Africa
Maps of Africa
A fascinating sampling of maps depicting places in Africa.
Maps of Africa
Lionel Pincus and Princess Firyal Map Division
Maps of Liberia: 1830 to 1870
This collection of Liberia maps includes twenty examples from the American Colonization Society (ACS), organized in 1817 to resettle free black Americans in West Africa. These maps show early settlements in Liberia, indigenous political subdivisions, and some of the building lots that were assigned to settlers. This on-line presentation also includes other nineteenth-century maps of Liberia: a map prepared for a book first published in the 1820's by ACS agent Jehudi Ashmun, a map showing the areas in Liberia that were ceded to the society by indigenous chiefs, and a detailed map dated 1869 by a man thought to be the black American explorer Benjamin Anderson.
Americas
Maps of the Americas
A fascinating sampling of maps depicting places in the Americas.
Atlases of New York City
This group of maps includes the extent of NYPL's holding of real estate maps by William Perris (d.1862), the English-trained civil engineer and surveyor who originated the format.
Atlases of the United States
The Map Division's collection of historical atlases of the United States, showing states, counties, and cities. Includes fire insurance, cadastral, geological, and pictorial maps, dating largely from the 19th and early 20th centuries.
Charting America: Maps from the Lawrence H Slaughter Collection & Others
In 1997, on the death of Lawrence H. Slaughter, part of his magnificent private map collection came to NYPL from his estate, as a gift from his family. In 2001, the second half of the collection was given to the Map Division. His collection of maps focuses on the Middle Atlantic region, and formed the basis for the exhibition "In thy map securely saile."
Picturing America: 1497-1899
The major source for the images in this digital presentation-the Phelps Stokes Collection of American historical prints and early views of American cities-came to the Library in 1930 as a gift of the architect and historian Isaac Newton Phelps Stokes (1867-1944).
Maps of South America
Lionel Pincus and Princess Firyal Map Division
American Revolutionary War Era Maps
American Revolutionary War era, defined broadly as 1750 to 1800. This collection encompasses approximately 900 maps covering Boston and New England, as well as the remainder of eastern North America and the West Indies during this time period.
Boston & New England Maps
pre-20th-century Boston and New England Maps Collection is the local region, encompassing Boston, Massachusetts, and New England. The collection consists of more than 600 maps of the city of Boston and approximately 1,000 maps of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and its counties, regions, and towns, along with 75 related atlases.
Atlas of the Historical Geography of the United States
Here you will find one of the greatest historical atlases: Charles O. Paullin and John K. Wright's Atlas of the Historical Geography of the United States, first published in 1932. This digital edition reproduces all of the atlas's nearly 700 maps. Many of these beautiful maps are enhanced here in ways impossible in print, animated to show change over time or made clickable to view the underlying data—remarkable maps produced eight decades ago with the functionality of the twenty-first century.
The National Map (USA)
As one of the cornerstones of the U.S. Geological Survey's (USGS) National Geospatial Program, The National Map is a collaborative effort among the USGS and other Federal, State, and local partners to improve and deliver topographic information for the Nation. It has many uses ranging from recreation to scientific analysis to emergency response.
New York City Subway Historical Map Collection
Maps from 1880 to the present of the New York City Subway.
American Revolution & its Era
The collection represents an important historical record of the mapping of North America and the Caribbean.
Most of the items presented here are documented in Maps and Charts of North America and the West Indies, 1750-1789: A Guide to the Collections in the Library of Congress compiled by John R. Sellers and Patricia Molen van Ee in 1981. The bibliography contains approximately 2,000 maps and charts. Over the next several years many of the maps and charts in this bibliography will be added to the online collection each month.
The maps and charts in this online collection number well over two thousand different items, with easily as many or more unnumbered duplicates, many with distinct colorations and annotations. Almost six hundred maps are original manuscript drawings, a large number of which are the work of such famous mapmakers as John Montrésor, Samuel Holland, Claude Joseph Sauthier, John Hills, and William Gerard De Brahm. They also include many maps from the personal collections of William Faden, Admiral Richard Howe, and the comte de Rochambeau, as well as large groups of maps by three of the best eighteenth-century map publishers in London: Thomas Jefferys, William Faden, and Joseph Frederick Wallet Des Barres. Historical cartographers can compare multiple editions, states, and impressions of several of the most important maps of the period, follow the development of a particular map from the manuscript sketch to the finished printed version and its foreign derivatives, and examine the cartographic styles and techniques of surveyors and mapmakers from seven different countries: Great Britain, France, Germany, Spain, Holland, Italy, and the United States.
Civil War Maps
Brings together materials from three premier collections: the Library of Congress Geography and Map Division, the Virginia Historical Society, and the Library of Virginia. Among the reconnaissance, sketch, and theater-of-war maps are the detailed battle maps made by Major Jedediah Hotchkiss for Generals Lee and Jackson, General Sherman's Southern military campaigns, and maps taken from diaries, scrapbooks, and manuscripts all available for the first time in one place.
Most of the items presented here are documented in Civil War Maps: An Annotated List of Maps and Atlases in the Library of Congress, compiled by Richard W. Stephenson in 1989. New selections from 2,240 maps and 76 atlases held by the Library will be added monthly.
Civil War Maps contains items from the Library of Congress Geography and Map Division, the Library of Virginia, and the Virginia Historical Society.
This presentation contains approximately 2,240 Civil War maps and charts and 76 atlases and sketchbooks that are held within the Geography and Map Division, 200 maps from the Library of Virginia, and 400 maps from the Virginia Historical Society.
Discovery & Exploration
This category documents the discovery and exploration with both manuscripts and published maps. Many of these maps reflect the European Age of Discoveries, dating from the late 15th century to the 17th century when Europeans were concerned primarily with determining the outline of the continents as they explored and mapped the coastal areas and the major waterways. Also included are 18th and 19th century maps documenting the exploration and mapping of the interior parts of the continents, reflecting the work of Lewis and Clark and subsequent government explorers and surveyors.
Louisiana: European Explorations & The Louisiana Purchase
The Louisiana Purchase is a landmark event in American history, one that had a lasting impact not only on the size of the United States, but also on its economic, cultural, and political makeup. Before President Thomas Jefferson's administration purchased the territory in 1803, parts or all of the territory had been under the control of various Native American nations. From the 16th century onwards the Spanish and later the French controlled the territory.
This presentation focuses on the various documents from maps to newspapers to cultural artifact that help to describe the region of North America that stretched from as far east as Alabama into what is now the state of Montana. The 119 items presented here come from the various special and general collections of the Library of Congress.
Mapping the National Parks
This collection documents the history, cultural aspects and geological formations of areas that eventually became National Parks. The collection consists of approximately 200 maps dating from the 17th century to the present, reflecting early mapping of the areas that would become four National Parks, as well as the parks themselves. Production of this collection is being supported by a generous gift from The Rockefeller Foundation.
Documenting the mapping of the national parks online is a project that has expanded through several stages. At the request of the U.S. Geological Survey, twenty-six maps of Yellowstone National Park were scanned to commemorate the park's 125th anniversary. The items included were selected by Geological Survey staff, and they became one of the first cartographic collections made available as part of American Memory.
The criteria for choosing maps of three additional parks (Acadia, Grand Canyon, and Great Smoky Mountains) to join the Yellowstone collection in creating Mapping the National Parks included diversity of geography and topography and their popularity as travel destinations. Acadia, Grand Canyon, and Great Smoky Mountains National Parks vary greatly in their histories of discovery, exploration, and development, as well as in their location, geology, and physical and cultural environments.
Military Battles & Campaigns
This category contains maps showing campaigns of major military conflicts including troop movements, defensive structures and groundworks, roads to and from sites of military engagements, campsites, and local buildings, topography and vegetation. Some of the maps are manuscripts drawn on the field of battle, while others are engraved including some that have manuscript annotations reflecting the history of the battle or campaign. A significant number of battle maps provide information about the locality that is not available elsewhere such as the location of plantations, the names of landowners in the area, the configuration of small towns and villages, and indications of prior settlement by native Americans.
Railroad Maps 1828-1900
Contains 623 maps chosen from more than 3,000 railroad maps and about 2,000 regional, state, and county maps, and other maps which show "internal improvements" of the past century. The maps presented here are a selection from the Geography and Map Division holdings, based on the popular cartobibliography, Railroad Maps of the United States: A Selective Annotated Bibliography of Original 19th-century Maps in the Geography and Map Division of the Library of Congress, compiled by Andrew M. Modelski (Washington: Library of Congress, 1975). This annotated list reveals the scope of the railroad map collection and highlights the development of railroad mapping in 19th-century America.
Sanborn Maps
The Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps Online Checklist provides a searchable database of the fire insurance maps published by the Sanborn Map Company housed in the collections of the Geography and Map Division. The online checklist is based upon the Library's 1981 publication Fire Insurance Maps in the Library of Congress and will be continually updated to reflect new acquisitions.
Transportation & Communication
These maps document the development and status of transportation and communication systems on the national, state, and local level. Transportation maps can depict canal and river systems, cycling routes , railway lines and systems, roads and road networks, and traffic patterns. Communication maps illustrate the location and distribution of telegraph routes, telephone systems and radio coverage.
USGS Topo Maps
TopoView highlights one of the USGS's most important and useful products, the topographic map. In 1879, the USGS began to map the Nation's topography.
The maps shown through topoView are from the USGS’s US Topo series and earlier Historical Topographic Map Collection (HTMC). The term “US Topo” refers specifically to quadrangle topographic maps published in 2009 and later. These maps are modeled on the familiar 7.5-minute quadrangle maps of the period 1947-1992, but are mass-produced from national GIS databases on a repeating cycle.
Arctic & Antarctic Regions
Asia
Maps of Asia
The NYPL Map Division's collection of historical maps of Asia dating from the 17th century through the early 20th century. The collection includes general views as well as maps of individual countries in the region, including Turkey and India.
Maps of Asia
A fascinating sampling of maps depicting places in Asia.
Europe
Maps of the UK
This sundry collection of maps depicting places in the UK illustrates the variety of mapping produced primarily in the 19th and 20th centuries. The outstanding British map publishers are represented, as are "modern" themes of car, rail and air transport and medical and social mapping.
The Unveiling of Britain
This selection of maps and views traces the growing awareness of the form of British Isles and their place in the wider world from 800 to 1600.
Crane Collection of Maps of London
Over 1200 maps and plans of the capital: a fascinating collection brought together by the Victorian designer, Frederick Crace.
King George III Topographical Collection
Over 2,500 watercolours, drawings and prints from the vast collection amassed by a monarch for whom geography was a personal passion as well as a professional necessity.
Maps of Europe
This varied collection of maps depicting places in Europe spans the 17th to 20th centuries. The combination of early town plans and defenses, with 20th century topographic and military maps, illustrates the enduring purposes of mapping, while revealing technical and stylistic developments in cartography.
Maps of Europe
Lionel Pincus and Princess Firyal Map Division
History of Greece
FROM THE EARLIEST RECORDS OF THAT COUNTRY, TO THE TIME IN WHICH IT WAS REDUCED TO A ROMAN PROVINCE. ILLUSTRATED WITH MAPS AND PORTRAITS. FOR THE USE OF YOUNG PERSONS
