Obtain 131,000 Historic Maps from the Large David Rumsey Map Assortment

The world has modified dra­mat­i­cal­ly over the previous 500 years, albeit not fairly as dra­mat­i­cal­ly as how we see the world. That’s simply what’s on dis­play on the David Rum­sey Map Col­lec­tion, whose greater than 131,000 his­tor­i­cal maps and relat­ed photographs are avail­in a position to browse (or down­load) free on-line. Since we final fea­tured it right here on Open Cul­ture, the col­lec­tion has added at the very least 40,000 gadgets to its dig­i­tal maintain­ings, mak­ing it an much more valu­ready useful resource for not slightly below­stand­ing how human­i­ty has considered the world via­out the ages, however how we’ve imag­ined it — and, for that mat­ter, how we’ve imag­ined oth­er worlds from Mars to Nar­nia to Kryp­ton.

“Imag­i­nary maps” is simply one of many cat­e­gories via which you’ll be able to discover the David Rum­sey Map Col­lec­tion. There are additionally tags for information­pa­per maps, time­traces, metropolis maps, celes­tial maps, information visu­al­iza­tions, chil­dren’s maps, and extra vari­eties in addition to.

In the event you’d pre­fer a extra tra­di­tion­al type of orga­ni­za­tion, you’ll be able to seek for maps of spe­cif­ic geo­graph­i­cal areas: North Amer­i­ca, South Amer­i­ca, Europe, Asia, Africa, Aus­tralia, Antarc­ti­ca, the Pacif­ic, the Arc­tic, and naturally, the world. If it’s the final merchandise you’re inter­est­ed in, other than the con­sid­er­ready two-dimen­sion­al maintain­ings, the inter­ac­tive globes con­sti­tute a gallery of their very own, and there you’ll be able to view ones made between the mid-six­teenth cen­tu­ry and simply final yr from each pos­si­ble angle.

Among the many web site’s new fea­tures is a “search by text-on-maps” fea­ture, which you’ll be able to acti­vate by click on­ing the “by Textual content on Maps” however­ton subsequent to the search win­dow on the prime of the web page. This allows you to com­pare and con­trast the methods par­tic­u­lar locations have been labeled on the vari­ety of maps within the col­lec­tion: not simply prop­er names like Cairo, Madrid, and Yosemite, but additionally extra gen­er­al phrases like “gold mine,” “mild­home” or “drag­ons.” Arguably, we take a look at maps extra typically right here within the twen­ty-first cen­tu­ry than we ever did earlier than, although sel­dom if ever will we depart from whichev­er map­ping app we hap­pen to maintain on our telephones. It’s value step­ping again in automobile­to­graph­i­cal time to remem­ber that there have been as soon as as some ways of underneath­stand­ing the world as there have been depic­tions of it.

Relat­ed con­tent:

Oculi Mun­di: A Beau­ti­ful On-line Archive of 130 Historic Maps, Atlases & Globes

40,000 Ear­ly Mod­ern Maps Are Now Freely Avail­ready On-line (Cour­tesy of the British Library)

Historic Maps that Modified the World: See World Maps from Historic Greece, Child­lon, Rome, and the Islam­ic World

An Archive of 800+ Imag­i­na­tive Professional­pa­gan­da Maps Designed to Form Opin­ions & Beliefs: Enter Cornell’s Per­sua­sive Maps Col­lec­tion

Primarily based in Seoul, Col­in Marshall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His tasks embody the Sub­stack newslet­ter Books on Cities, the e-book The State­much less Metropolis: a Stroll via Twenty first-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les and the video sequence The Metropolis in Cin­e­ma. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­e-book.