Some free online sources of maps

[PeterC]

One of the most useful sources of links to sites with historic maps is Map History - "the gateway to the History of Cartography", which has many articles about mapping, and links to many sources of maps for every part of the world. It is maintained by Tony Campbell (former Map Librarian, British Library, London) and is continually updated. It also has links to other "Gateway Sites", which themselves have lists of useful links.

I started the lists below before finding the Map History site, and we will have to see if it is worth developing our own list further. (Apologies that this list is starting off as UK-focused but, as with everything on this forum, I am hoping that we will make it more balanced as people contribute from arond the world.)

These map sites are primarily of the British Isles in general:

• Genmaps is a site devoted to online images of  English, Welsh and Scottish maps from their beginnings to the early 20^th Century
• National Library of Scotland (NLS) has a wonderful website with maps of the whole of mainland Great Britain of various dates and scales - you can even compare maps by fading between them (slider is the blue dot on the left), or side-by-side
• The National Archives has one of the world's richest holdings of historical mapping (14th - 20th centuries), of the British Isles and elsewhere: most not online but there are useful research guides
• A Vision of Britain Through Time has topographical, land use and administration maps from the 19th and 20th Centuries (Note that A Vision of Britain Through Time grew out of the work at the University of Portsmouth on the Great Britain Historical Geographical Information System (GBHGIS), which is also described in this Wikipedia article.)
• British History Online is a digital library of key printed sources for the history of Britain and Ireland, with a primary focus on the period between 1300 and 1800, and has a few maps
• The Linguistic Geographies project of King's College London has made available the Gough Map of Great Britain (c 1370)
• The MAPCO Map and Plan Collection displays a variety of highly collectable 18th and 19th century maps and plans of London and the British Isles, and also 19th century maps and engravings relating to Australia

These are primarily of Scotland:

• National Library of Scotland (NLS) has many historic maps of Scotland
• The National Records of Scotland have a large collection of Maps and Plans of Scotland, and some are available online at ScotlandsPlaces
• The Charting the Nation image collection includes a wide variety of single maps and maps in books

These are primarily of specific parts of the British Isles:

• New Landscapes:  Berkshire enclosures - access to historic manuscript maps and documents online
• Birmingham Images includes old maps of areas within Birmingham (it also a Map Explorer using NLS maps, and GPS Explorer which shows images related to where you are)
• Cheshire Local History Association has made available early Cheshire maps from the collection held at Cheshire Record Office
• On the Cheshire Archives and Local Studies website there are Cheshire tithe maps in a way that can be compared to Ordnance Survey maps and aerial photographs - including data on apportionments
• Based on the Cheshire tithe maps system is the Leeds Tithe Map Digital Resource (Tracks in Time)
• Old Maps of Lancashire are available from Lancashire County Council
• LondonAncestor has maps of London, and some of other parts of the UK (see the foot of the page)
• Historic maps of Norfolk (OS, tithe, enclosure, aerial etc) are available from a very impressive Norfolk County Council, where you can examine maps in detail, as well as fade between any pair of them
• The Oxfordshire History site has links to some online maps (including some in Australia!), but also has an interesting article about using maps
• Ye Olde Maps of Ye Plymouthe of Ye Merrie Englande by Steve Johnsona is a "hotch potch collection of images of maps of Plymouth, Devon"

These are of everywhere:

• Old Maps Online is the search engine for historical maps, maintained by volunteers, showing free online content from archives and libraries all over the world (including eg David Rumsey)
• The David Rumsey Map Collection from Cartography Associates focuses on rare 16th through 21st century maps of North and South America, as well as maps of the World
• The British Library has a large collection of maps etc from all over the world; they have a Maps and View blog
• (You can even help them identify accurate locations for these historic maps by being part of their Georeferencing project, and all georeferenced maps are then accessible via Old Maps Online. The original un-georeferenced maps are still available on Flickr.)
• The Medieval Atlas is a directory of maps etc of the world in general during the Middle Ages
• Historic Cities aims to contain maps etc concerning the past, present and future of historic cities and to facilitate the location of similar content on the web.

Other lists of sources of maps include:

• UK and Ireland: Maps from GENUKI
• Familysearch England Maps

Note that in addition to the above there is much useful (both modern and historic) data and mapping among Council planning and heritage GISes.

Wikipedia has a List of online map services, for various locations in the world - but these are just modern  maps.

And for a totally different experience at Crafting the Past you can explore "a full-scale, topographically accurate and interactive map of Scotland in Minecraft with thousands of years of history".

[Alex]

The National Library of Australia has over 600,000 international maps, from early European charts to current mapping of Australia, and a lot of these are online. See https://www.nla.gov.au/what-we-collect/maps for background, and search the main catalogue to find them (specify "maps" in the format when using Advanced Search).