Online Map Libraries (Real World Cartography)

[ravells]

From time to time, I will collect all the finds listed in this thread and abstract them in this original post for easy reference.
-ravells.

David Rumsey Map Collection
The David Rumsey Historical Map Collection has over 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. Collection categories include antique atlas, globe, school geography, maritime chart, state, county, city, pocket, wall, childrens, and manuscript maps.

Perry-Casteneda Library Map Collection
Contains hundreds of links to other historical map websites. The collection is categorised by Continent.

Holy Land Maps - University of Florida
Lots of old maps of Judea/Palestine/Israel arranged in chronological order.

Antique Map Magazine - Mapforum.com
An online Magazine with numerous articles about and examples of old maps.

Genmaps - Old and interesting maps of England, Scotland and Wales
Categorised by Country and County and chronologically.

The National Maritime Museum
Old sea charts from around the world, categorised geographically. Also some continental maps.

Antique Atlas
An online antique map shop with low resolution images (clickable to higher resolutions) of maps categorised geographically.

Maps of the Past
Another online store with old maps categorised by function, e.g. railroad, civil war, panoramic etc. Mostly maps of the USA but with an international section.

Historic Cities
Old maps of cities of the world. Searchable alphabetically.

Reinhold Berg Antique Map shop
Organised by region, maps may be viewed in detail through zoomify.

Free Relief Layers from Google
Uses the google maps engine to show a zoomable relief map of the world.

Solo mapas - Just maps
A collection of about one hundred and fifty maps in varying resolutions. Organised by region.

Great Buildings Collection
Overhead satellite images of famous buildings around the world. Searchable by Building name, architect and place.

Big Map Blog
A collection of lots of old and unusual maps with an in-browser zoom facility so you can see the detail

[darkness]

Good Map sources
http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/map_s...ist_sites.html
http://www.uflib.ufl.edu/maps/MAPHOLY03.HTML
http://www.mapforum.com/index.htm

[RobA]

I found an excellent list of map links here:
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb....aps/index.html

Maps of Wales, England and Scotland. arranged by county and chronologically.

-Rob A>

[pyrandon]

Sweet find, Rob! My first shot turned up a 16th century map of Wales! Hours of inspiration! Thanks.

[keithcurtis]

Good resource. Excellent find! Bookmarked.

[RobA]

I was looking for something completely non-relevant to this site, when I came across the UK's National Maritime Museum. Specifically, the Charts and Maps section.

From their own description:

The National Maritime Museum collections contain more than 100,000 sea charts and maps dating from the medieval period to the present day. They document the results of exploration and discovery and show how techniques of navigation and surveying developed. Many were owned by naval officers and politicians and were used to plan and record the events which have become maritime history. The collections are not exclusively British and although they concentrate on charting the seas and coastlines, land maps are also included. Together they illustrate the work of the leading hydrographers and cartographers throughout the history of charting and mapmaking.

Just gorgeous...The only drawback is that some of the fancy on-line zoom things don't appear to work in firefox, though you can download most of the images....

-Rob A>

[deanatglobe]

The zoom features don't appear to be working in ie7 either so it may just be broken, or designed for safari only

[Midgardsormr]

The David Rumsey Historical Map Collection. High quality images of thousands of beautiful maps, mostly from the 18th & 19th centuries.

[ravells]

I stumbled on this DK site:

http://www.dkimages.com/discover/Hom...ibution-7.html

you have to pay to download the maps, but you can get inspired and borrow the styles for free!

I also found this image which has a very interesting style in which the legend is bigger than the map itself, but I think you could have a lot of fun with it.

[ravells]

The Antique Atlas website is good for a visit if you're looking for reference styles.

Also have a look at Maps of the Past.