Maps and Cartographic Resources

The first mention of California as an island is in Garci Rodriguez de Montalvo’s “Las Sergas de Esplandián,” published in 1510. This rendering, coming from Montalvo’s imagination, became firmly embedded on maps — California was depicted as an Island on maps in the 17th and 18th centuries. It was not until Father Eusebio Kino’s map entitled “A Passage by Land to California,” informed by his travels between 1698 and 1701, that this cartographic blunder was exposed. Even so, it took another half century for the the island to attach itself back on to North America on maps — the maps lagged behind reality and became a cartographic phenomenon that defied the science of mapping. The island of imagination won over terrestrial reality and resulted in some of the most beautiful maps ever produced. The entire collection of 711 maps is available online.

From CSU Chico Meriam Library, Special Collections Department

1397 diseños are available online. Print copies are on deposit at the UCB Bancroft Library.

Historical Maps of California from Map of US

UCLA Special Collections

Works Progress Administration Digital Archive provides 345 hand-colored maps from the 1933-39 land use survey of Los Angeles. Detailed and colorful maps of the built up L.A. region

Digitized maps from the Bodleian Map Collection.

Maps of London, 19th and 20th century United Kingdom maps and fire insurance plans

18,460 maps online. The collection focuses on rare 18th and 19th century North American and South American maps and other cartographic materials. Historic maps of the World, Europe, Asia, and Africa are also represented.

The David Rumsey Historical Maps Collection, navigable by region through the Google Maps interface.

From the University of British Columbia

Maps and Travel Literature offers unique insight into the age of cartography and the rise of leisure travel, providing access to a diverse collection of historic maps, atlases, gazetteers, and travel narratives. With materials sourced from such institutions as the British Library, the American Antiquarian Society, and the Bryn Mawr College Library, the archive illuminates travel and exploration during the long nineteenth century, including among its holdings a myriad of sketch maps created during colonial exploration and expansion.
Among the digitized documents are maps and other materials produced for nineteenth-century travelers, which contain useful city, town, and country information for researchers interested in the age of imperialism and the burgeoning middle classes. The extensive collection of European and non-European travel narratives offers a glimpse of the lands and peoples these travelers encountered as well as valuable insight into how the Industrial Revolution changed people's experiences in an ever-shrinking world.

Contains over 20,000 maps and charts from the late 1700s to present day. The Collection includes some of the nation's earliest nautical charts, hydrographic surveys, topographic surveys, geodetic surveys, city plans and Civil War battle maps.

Provides easy access to digitized historical maps from libraries around the world

Nineteenth Century Collections Online: British Politics and Society

Online map collections covering the world, countries, cities, etc. from the University of Texas, Austin.

Geography, Ancient--Maps.
Classical geography--Maps.

The Atlas describes and maps every change in the boundaries of all United States counties from the early 1600s to 2000. You can use interactive maps or download the shapefiles.

Charles O. Paullin’s 1932 atlas digitized and animated by the University of Ricmond. Includes nearly 700 maps.

The Charles E. Young Research Library owns the first volume of the set, "Europa-Germania-Germania Inferior". The volume was given to the UCLA Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies as part of a donation from the Margaret W. Romani Estate, and the Center offered the Atlas to the UCLA Library. The atlas contains extensive text, but only the map pages were scanned for this project. Scanning was funded by the Henry J. Bruman Educational Foundation.

The oldest surviving road map of Great Britain, also called the Bodleian Map.

1902

From the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, a digital collection of maps listed in the bibliography Maps of Africa to 1900: A Checklist of Maps in Atlases and Geographical Journals in the Collections of the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (Bassett & Scheven, Urbana: Graduate School of Library and Information Science, 2000).

The Library of Congress has digitized the 1870, 1880, 1890, and 1970 National Atlas.

An Esri Story Map