Online Maps - World
World | N. America | Europe | Middle East | Asia | Africa

Maps published before 1923 and maps published by the U.S. Government are in the public domain and thus many of them can be found on the web. Here is a list of selected online map websites. star = a good place to start.

starPerry-Castañeda Library Map Collection - Online Maps
http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/
Maps on this server are presented as they were originally published. The original publisher/source and date of the maps are provided on our web pages. The University of Texas Libraries makes no warranties or representations regarding the timeliness or geographic accuracy of any map in this collection.

starImages of Early Maps on the Web
http://www.maphistory.info/webimages.html
The most comprehensive listing of historical maps websites, comprising over 1,200 annotated links.

starDavid Rumsey Map Collection
http://www.davidrumsey.com/
The David Rumsey Historical Map Collection has over 14,800 maps online. The collection focuses on rare 18th and 19th century North and South America maps and other cartographic materials. Historic maps of the World, Europe, Asia and Africa are also represented.

Broer Map Collection
http://www.broermapsonline.org/members/
Broer Map Library's online collection of historic maps from around the world.

Historic Cities: Maps & Documents
http://historic-cities.huji.ac.il/
A joint project of the Historic Cities Center of the Department of Geography, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Jewish National and University Library, containing maps, literature, documents, books and other relevant material concerning the past, present and future of historic cities and facilitates the location of similar content on the web.

Plan Bleu--Environment and development in the Mediterranean
http://www.planbleu.org/donnees/eau/carte/
carteEau_uk.html
Plan Bleu publishes boundary and thematic maps of the Mediterranean area comprising many countries--Italy, Spain, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Greece, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Albania, Monaco, France, Slovenia, Croatia. Maps include water resources and saline intrusion, urban areas, transport, desertification, tourism, etc. To find the maps, click on "DATA," and a drop-down list will appear.

ReliefWeb - Map Centre
http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/doc114?OpenForm
ReliefWeb, administered by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), is the world’s leading on-line gateway to information (documents and maps) on humanitarian emergencies and disasters, and has posted some 150 maps and documents daily from over 2,000 source from the UN system, governments, NGOs, academia and the media. Map Centre also creates original ReliefWeb maps

U.N. Environment Programme/GRID-Arendal Maps and Graphics Library
http://maps.grida.no/
This site from the United Nations and GRID-Arendal is an on-going project to collect and catalogue all graphic products that have been prepared for publications and web-sites from the last 15 years in a wide range of themes related to environment and sustainable development. The site has many images, graphs, maps and interactive maps, with thematic maps on geography, statistics, environmental issues, education, conflict, urban issues and more.

UC Berkeley Library, Earth Sciences & Map Library, Digital Map Collection
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/EART/browse.html
Several thousand maps from the library's collection have been scanned and are viewable online. These images may be viewed via UCB Library Pathfinder, the Library's web catalog, which also contains records for many other maps available online.

United Nations maps
http://www.un.org/Depts/Cartographic/english/
htmain.htm
General and thematic maps from the United Nations Cartographic Section can be found on this page. General maps and thematic maps are available in .pdf format, and include thematic maps, peacekeeping maps, and current general area and country maps.

WHO Public Health Mapping and GIS
http://gamapserver.who.int/mapLibrary/
This site provides access to a collection of maps from the map library of WHO's Public Health Mapping GIS programme.

Yale University Library: The Map Collection
http://www.library.yale.edu/MapColl/print_online.html
This site from Yale University Library has historical maps of Africa ranging from 1609 to the 1980s, as well as historical Sanborn fire insurance maps of New Haven, CT, and historical maps relating to the Silk Road and Asia.

North America (U.S. excluded)    ^ back to top

NYPL Digital Gallery : Charting North America: Maps from the Lawrence H. Slaughter Collection and Others
http://digitalgallery.nypl.org/
The Lawrence H. Slaughter map collection focuses on the Middle Atlantic region, and formed the basis for the exhibition "In thy map securely saile." Also included are antique maps for places around the world, from the Holy Lands to Bermuda, providing additional specimens for this digital presentation.

Maps and Plans of Quebec, Canada, and more
http://bibnum2.banq.qc.ca/bna/cargeo/accueil.htm
This site has many historical maps and plans mainly of Quebec, Canada, and some of the United States and North America.

The Atlas of Canada
http://atlas.nrcan.gc.ca/
The Atlas of Canada provides authorative, current and accessible geographic information products at a national level. Included are interactive mapping sites, downloadable images and data, and WMS (Web Map Services.)

Canada: The MapPlace
http://www.mapplace.ca
MapPlace facilitates easy access to the maps and databases of the BC Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources. Create your own maps using interactive data sets. Create reports and download data from selected themes and objects.

Statistics Canada, Census Geography
http://geodepot.statcan.ca/diss/index_e.cfm
Learn about Canadian census geography online through maps, data and supporting reference material. See also: http://www.statcan.ca/english/mapsgeo/

Canada: GeoConnections
http://cgdi.gc.ca/
GeoConnections by Canadian Geospatial Data Infrastructure (CGDI) helps decision makers use online location-based (or geospatial) information, such as maps and satellite images. The program focuses on working with partners in public health, public safety and security, the environment and sustainable development, Aboriginal matters and geomatics technology development.

Atlas Nacional de México (Mapas temáticos de México)
http://www.igeograf.unam.mx/iggweb/pdf/publicaciones/
atlas/tomo1.html
A beautiful three volumes set, national atlas of Mexico by the Universidad National Autonoma de Mexico, is available for viewing and also downloading.

Mexico State Maps
http://www.maps-of-mexico.com/mexico_states.shtml
This site has digitized versions of maps of Mexican states. Click on each state or thumbnail to view larger pictures.

Europe    ^ back to top

Historical maps of England, Wales, and Scotland
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/%7Egenmaps/
Historical maps, street plans, and related drawings of England, Wales, and Scotland from as early as the 1400s are available from this site. The collection is made up of the publishers' maps, as well as donated scanned images.

Maps of Wallonia and surrounding Europe
http://patrimoine.met.wallonie.be/Cartoth%E8que/
This site, in French although it appears it may be in English soon, has digitized images of historical maps of Wallonia (in Belgium) as well as surrounding areas of Flanders, Antwerp, Brabant-Fleming, Limbourg, and Brussells.

Charting the Nation: Maps of Scotland, 1550-1740
http://www.chartingthenation.lib.ed.ac.uk/
The Charting the Nation image collection includes a wide variety of single maps and maps in atlases and other bound books, together with important manuscript and printed texts relating to the geography and mapping of Scotland from 1550 to 1740 and beyond.

Maps from Our Collections: National Library of Scotland
http://www.nls.uk/maps/index.html
Online map collection by the National Library of Scotland. This online map collection provides thousands of zoomable maps of Scotland for the period 1560-1928.

Topographic Maps of Central Europe (1:200 000) Published Circa 1910
http://lazarus.elte.hu/hun/digkonyv/topo/3felmeres.htm
This site provides historic maps of Central Europe, called 3rd Military Mapping Survey of Austria-Hungary. The main site shows an index map - click the index map to look at the actual scanned map sheet. Please also visit this site for more information, http://lazarus.elte.hu/hun/maps/1910/1910ind.htm

GeoWeb, a cartographic website of the Marciana Library in Venice
http://geoweb.venezia.sbn.it/geoweb/InfoE.html
The GeoWeb project from the Marciana Library has digitized about 15,000 historical maps of Italy. They have the complete collection of Vincenzo Coronelli, and other rare historical maps of the area dating back to Greek and Roman times. Images are available in TIFF or JPEG.

Map Library of Catalonia, Spain
http://www.icc.es/web/content/en/common/cartoteca/
inici_cartoteca_ciutada.html
Consult the collection of both ancient and modern maps, as well as other geographic documentation either from Catalonia or all over the world.

Middle East    ^ back to top

Holy Land Maps
http://www.jnul.huji.ac.il/dl/maps/pal/html/
Available on this site are historical maps of the Holy Land (as described in the Bible) of areas such as Bethlehem, Jerusalem, Nazareth, Mount Carmel, Tel Aviv, etc., from the 1650s to the 1920s.

Topographic Maps of Israel
http://www.mapi.gov.il/page?id=maps/maps
(See also: http://ecom.gov.il/Mapi/homepage_en.aspx)

Asia    ^ back to top

USGS Projects in Afghanistan
http://afghanistan.cr.usgs.gov/downloads.php
Download Landsat and ASTER imagery, SRTM DEMs, Soviet topographic sheets and various vector data sets for the country of Afghanistan. USGS has developed a comprehensive Landsat data set for Afghanistan that includes original and atmospherically corrected scenes as well as 3 band natural and false color composites.

Afghanistan Information Management Service
http://www.aims.org.af
The AIMS project is building information management capacity in government and delivers information management services to organisations across Afghanistan.

Army Map Service Series L500 of China: Index Map, 1:250,000 Scale, c. 1950
http://hcl.harvard.edu/libraries/maps/collections/
series_indices/China_Index.html
This visual index has been created to help users select a map graphically. Each map sheet is identified by a two letter code (listed along the eastern edge of the map), the UTM Zone number (listed on the southern edge of the map), and a tile number between 1 and 16.

China in Maps - Hong Kong University of Science & Technology Library
http://library.ust.hk/info/exhibit/maps-2002/
This exhibition features HKUST Library's special collection of antique maps. They date from the 16th century through the 19th century and show the growth of knowledge about the geography of China and the surrounding region. The artistic quality of the maps is outstanding, as is their historical value.

Japanese Historical Map Collection
http://www.davidrumsey.com/japan/
The Japanese Historical Map Collection contains about 2,300 early maps of Japan and the World. The collection was acquired by the University of California from the Mitsui family in 1949, and is housed on the Berkeley campus in the East Asian Library. Represented in this online collection are over 1100 images of maps and books from this Collection.

Korea: Whitebird.co.kr
http://www.whitebird.co.kr/
High resolution imagery of major Korean cities. Use the overview map to select a city to view.

Korea: National Atlas of Korea
http://nationalatlas.ngii.go.kr/e-ngiatlas/ngiatlas.html
By the National Geographic Information Institute of Korea. I haven't figured out how to change map types, but the site is supposed to offer various types of thematic maps.

A Historical Atlas of South Asia
http://dsal.uchicago.edu/reference/schwartzberg/
From Digital South Asia Library of the University of Chicago, a Historical Atlas of South Asia by Schwartzberg, Joseph E. A.

Africa    ^ back to top

16th- Early 20th Century Maps of Africa
http://www.library.northwestern.edu/govinfo/
collections/mapsofafrica/
This site features digital copies of 113 antique maps of Africa and accompanying text dating from the mid 16th Century to the early 20th Century. All scanned maps are authentic and originally collected by the Melville J. Herskovits Library of African Studies (or the Africana Library) at Northwestern University

Afriterra: The Cartographic Free Library
http://www.afriterra.org/
The AFRITERRA Foundation is a non-profit Cartographic Library and Archive assembling and preserving the original rare maps of Africa in a definitive place for education and interpretation. We view cartography as a medium that uniquely links art, technology, and history.

American Museum of Natural History. Congo Expedition, May 1909-November 1915
http://diglib1.amnh.org/galleries/maps/index.html
The maps in this gallery reflect the development of European knowledge of African geography from 1562 through 1940. They are reproduced with the permission of the New York Public Library and the British Library.

Maps and Other Data for North-Central Namibia
http://www.met.gov.na/programmes/nnep/
This site contains environmental information and maps for north-central Namibia, collected from various sources across several sectors, both government and non-government.

Last updated: May 9, 2008