Subject and Research Guides: Maps: Historic Maps

Historic Map collections @ MQ Library

Many of our databases contain primary source maps within them. Below is a small selection. MultiSearch contains a full list of History databases.

British Library: Ministry of Defense maps This link opens in a new window The maps accumulated by the Ministry of Defence and selected for this cartographic survey of the long nineteenth century include maps and plans created by the most sophisticated cartographers with the greatest corporate and governmental institutional support and hand-drawn sketches rapidly drafted in secret in preparation for combat.
Crace collection of maps of London This link opens in a new window Date rage of documents: 1570-1860. Reproduction of the originals from the British Library.
Empire Online This link opens in a new window This fulltext database offers approximately 60,000 images of original documents linked to essays by leading scholars in the field of Empire Studies. The five sections cover Cultural Contacts, 1492-1969; Empire Writing and the Literature of Empire; The Visible Empire; Religion and Empire; and Race, Class and Colonialism, c1783-1969.
Gale Primary Sources This link opens in a new window Cross-searchable gateway to: Eighteenth century collections online; Nineteenth century collections online; The making of modern law: legal treatises, 1800-1926; Crime, punishment, and popular culture 1790-1920; The Economist historical archive, 1843-2011; The Independent digital archive, 1986-2012; The Times literary supplement historical archive; The Listener historical archive, 1929-1991; Archives of sexuality and gender; The Financial Times Historical Archive, 1888-2010.
Global Commodities: Trade, Exploration & Cultural Exchange This link opens in a new window Date range: 16th-20th Centuries Geographical focus: Britain, US, Americas Providing access to a vast range of visual, manuscript and printed materials exploring the history of fifteen major commodities and examining the ways these commodities have changed the world. Also includes data visualisation for commodity prices.
The National Archives: Selected maps representing the long 19th century This link opens in a new window The nineteenth-century maps and plans selected from the National Archives of the United Kingdom for this digital collection collectively picture Britain's striving for, defining of, and defense of its empire on every continent on the globe.

Modern History

Dixson Map Collection Sir William Dixson's map collection reveals the history of European exploration and settlement of the Pacific.

Australia

Atlas of the Suburbs of Sydney The Atlas of the Suburbs of Sydney is a series of late-nineteenth-century commercial maps that provides a portrait of the city during a period of rapid growth and suburbanisation.
Birds Eye Sydney A NSW State Library collection of digitised maps showing bird's eye views of Sydney.
Colonial Frontier Massacres in Central and Eastern Australia 1788-1930 A project by the Centre for 21st Century Humanities at the University of Newcastle Australia.
Historical Atlas of Sydney: Maps from the City of Sydney Archives
NSW Subdivision Plans This is a large collection of posters advertising new subdivisions and sale of land in NSW.
Sydney by Decade A selection of maps from the NSW State Library highlighting the changes to Sydney and the Cumberland Plains from the 1770s through to the 1960s.