From the Index
Maps tell stories about how people understand, measure, navigate, and imagine the world. This growing collection brings together historic maps and map-like objects, with descriptions, creators, dates, source institutions, and rights information that help place each work in context.
Field Notes
Sanson’s map divides the peninsula into the three Arabias familiar to European historical geography while drawing substantially on al-Idrisi’s medieval geographical tradition. Its pictorial mountains, colored territories, and…
Field Notes
Cary’s map connects the Arabian Peninsula with the Nile Valley and the Horn of Africa through caravan paths and maritime routes. Journeys toward Mecca appear beside the course…
Field Notes
Ravenstein’s map brings desert terrain, settlements, and crossing routes into a single regional view stretching from the Atlantic coast toward the Niger. Red lines distinguish the recorded itineraries…
Field Notes
Stanford’s map follows the Nile system from the equatorial lakes to the Mediterranean, placing its tributaries, settlements, railways, and neighboring regions in one view. Color and boundary lines…
Field Notes
Freycinet’s French-language chart gives Australia a continuous continental outline while concentrating place names and detail around its shores. The contrast between closely labeled coasts and the sparsely described…
Field Notes
Nagakubo Sekisui’s woodblock map presents Japan as a connected landscape of roads, settlements, coasts and pictorial mountains. Its diagonal orientation places north toward the upper right, while color…
Field Notes
An island plan, two harbor charts and a coastal profile share this sheet from William Faden’s North American atlas. Soundings, channels, shoals and sailing notes turn Amelia Island’s…
Field Notes
This focused survey follows the Fire Hole River through Upper Geyser Basin, identifying geysers, springs and the surrounding terrain. Its hachures and compact labels connect named features such…
Field Notes
Brown contours, blue drainage and black roads translate the steep Yosemite landscape into a systematic survey. This 1:125,000 sheet covers Yosemite Valley, Hetch Hetchy, Wawona and the surrounding…
Field Notes
Published with the investigation of the 1906 California earthquake, this map places San Francisco’s streets over ten geological units and identifies the original shoreline. Contours and spot heights…
