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.

The California Historical Topographical Maps Colllection encompasses topographic quadrangles from the Meriam Library collection dated from 1888 to 1955. Maps in the digital collection are currently indexed by quadrangle name, county, and date. The collection includes 15' (1:62,500), 30' (1:125,000),and 60' (1:250,000) maps, as well a several of irregular scales. All of the maps images in this collection are in the public domain.

Digitized maps from university collections, public libraries, museums, and archives in California.

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

Digitized historical maps of California from mapofus.org

The collection from the UCLA Library consists of maps of Los Angeles and other parts of the United States including: California Geological Survey maps, tract maps of the San Francisco Bay area, beach cities of Southern California, New Mexico oil fields, maps from the American Civil War, railroad map of California, California gold fields, the Ranchos of Los Angeles and California city street maps. The collection also contains world maps and maps of other countries.

The Works Progress Administration (WPA) conducted a land use survey from December 18, 1933 to May 8, 1939 for the city of Los Angeles, Department of City Planning. It covered approximately 460 square miles within the boundary of the City of Los Angeles and resulted in this series of 345 hand-colored land use survey maps. They are collected in 10 books (averaging 35 maps per book) each corresponding to a geographic region within the City's boundary. Each original map measures about 2 ft. x 3.5 ft.

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.

The Bodleian map collection holds 1,500,000 sheet maps, 20,000 atlases and a rapidly expanding selection of geospatial data. Maps are held from all parts of the globe, with topographic and thematic maps dating from medieval times to the present day. As a library of legal deposit, the Bodleian assumes not only a university-wide role, but also a national and international one resulting from the wealth of its holdings.

Chronologically, the Center’s collections span from the fifteenth century to the present day, and geographically cover all world regions. The strongest areas of the collections are objects whose geographic extent includes Boston, Massachusetts, and New England. Many of the Leventhal Center’s most significant collections from the early modern period were previously held in the Rare Books department, while many of our nineteenth century materials were formerly held in the Prints department. The Center also holds many thousands of maps produced by federal, state, and local governments, as well as from agencies related to defense, environmental management, and urban and regional planning.

The David Rumsey Map Collection was started over 35 years ago and contains more than 200,000 maps. The collection focuses on rare 16th through 21st century maps of North and South America, as well as maps of the World, Asia, Africa, Europe, and Oceania. The collection includes atlases, globes, wall maps, school geographies, pocket maps, books of exploration, maritime charts, and a variety of cartographic materials including pocket, wall, children's, and manuscript maps. Items range in date from around 1550 to the present. Digitization of the collection began in 1996 and there are now over 141,000 items online, with new additions added regularly.
Try searching by text-on-maps!

The map collection showcases maps and atlases from the 16th through the 20th century, offering a rich view of the world. Highlights include:17th-century atlases and early modern European maps acquired by John H.W. Stuckenberg in Germany; classical world maps first published in 1834; a 1924 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map of Gettysburg; selections from the extensive 17th- to 20th-century holdings donated by Library of Congress map specialist Patricia Molen van Ee; and late 19th- and early 20th-century folding maps donated by former U.S. Ambassador Lawrence P. Taylor.

Finding Map Images is not easy, but start with the listing of well over 1,200 Image sites, for leads to digitized images of early maps. The section is arranged by geographical region, with listings of the larger sites and a page on themes. The Explanatory page discusses technical and policy issues surrounding digitization, and includes a note on Innovative sites.

UBC Library's Rare Books and Special Collections holds one of the world's largest collections of maps and guidebooks of the Japanese Tokugawa period, ca. 1600-1868. The collection varies in both format and size: items range from small single-sheet maps to more than thirty square feet, and also include a ceramic plate, a woodblock, and maps in scroll format.

The Maps of Africa to 1900 digital collection contains images 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). As such, this collection mines not only the Library's map collections, but also its extensive collection of 19th century atlases and geographical journals, including the Journal of the Royal Geographical Society (United Kingdom), the Bulletin de la Société de Géographie de Paris (France), and Petermanns Geographische Mittheilungen (Germany). Bassett's and Scheven's original bibliography lists 2,416 maps of which nearly 78 percent date from the 19th century. Africanists and historians of cartography are drawn to this century because the map of the continent changed so rapidly in the wake of European explorations, conquests, and colonization (Bassett & Scheven, p. iii). About a quarter of the collection dates from the sixteenth century, 9 percent from the seventeenth, and 13 percent from the eighteenth century. The Library is digitizing as many of the maps as possible, condition permitting. Maps are added to the collection as they are completed.

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

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

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.

An Esri Story Map