Antique maps in Google Maps

Some time ago I had seen on the Google Earth’s official blog, but after that Opaco has reminded us, I took a few minutes to see it working. I mean the old maps from the Rumsey collection made on Google Maps or Google Earth.

This example shows a map of the Iberian Peninsula in 1710, Spain divided by Castilla and Aragon. Portugal also appears.

The David Rumsey collection began 20 years ago, with primary focus on mapping the Americas of the 18th and 19th centuries (I will use these nomenclature because Roman numerals get me gray hair when I read) but it also contains world maps of Asia, Africa, Europe and Oceania. The collection to date amount near to 150,000 maps includes atlas, areas, school maps, books, charts and a variety of maps including Pocket, wall, children’s maps and other manually elaborated.

The scanning began about 1997. Thus it was possible to have this kind of valuable documents with high resolution, because if you remember, maps were content in great detail, now everything is in the database and for different purposes such results are represented graphically.

Of course, one of the goals was always to serve on the web and what better than to see them in the world popular mapping services, such as Google Maps and Google Earth, toys that changed the way we see the world.

In this map you can see the different rate of existing maps, and in the case of world maps there are in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. By bringing the mouse close it shows the year of the product.

Once clicked the icon, you can see the overview map, a link to see all the concerned information on both the original and the digitized map and another link to view deployed, with which it activates some sticks where you can control the transparency. Look eastern Brazil, 1842.

To view them in Google Earth just have to download this kmz that binds and allows viewing.

See this map of Colombia in 1840 while still including Ecuador, Venezuela and parts of Peru.

And what to say from this of East Argentina, 1867, this map shows the native American tribes in the middle of the 19th century

It really is a valuable contribution to the dissemination of that mapping collection. Here you can view the entire collection

And this is a list of some of the most significant maps

North America	Caribbean and South America	Europe
Mexico: Mexico 1809 Mexico City 1883North America: North America 1733 North America 1786 United States 1833 Lewis and Clark 1814 Mississippi River 1775 Western U.S. 1846 Alaska 1867 Hawaii Oahu 1899 Yosemite Valley 1883 United States: Chicago 1857 Denver 1879 Los Angeles 1880 New York 1836 New York 1851 New York 1852 San Francisco 1853 San Francisco 1859 San Francisco 1915 Seattle 1890 Washington DC 1851 Washington DC 1861 Canada: Canada 1815 Montreal 1758 Montreal 1815 Quebec 1759 Quebec 1815	South America: South America 1787 Argentina 1867 Buenos Aires 1892 Brazil 1842 Colombia 1840 Peru 1865 Lima, Peru 1865Caribbean: Cuba 1775 Martinique 1775 St. Vincent 1775 St. Lucia 1775	Europe 1787 Spain: Spain 1701 Madrid 1831 Portugal 1780 France: France 1750 France 1790 Paris 1716 Paris 1834 Italy: Italy 1800 Rome 1830 Ancient Rome 1830 Ancient Greece 1708 United Kingdom: England and Wales 1790 Scotland 1790 London Environs 1832 London 1843 Ireland 1790 Germany: Rhein-Province 1846 Oldenburg 1851 Der Harz 1852 Nassau 1851 Wurttemberg 1856 Hanover 1851 Sachsen 1860 Sachsen North 1852 Hessen 1844 Brandenburg 1846 Prussia 1847 Pommern 1845 Schleswig 1852 Possen 1844 Bayern 1860 Berlin 1860 Scandinavia 1794 Switzerland 1799 Russia: Russia 1706 Russia 1776 Russia 1794 Moscow 1745 Moscow 1836 St. Petersburg 1753