Maps, maps, maps!

November 9, 2009 12:14 PM

Do you like maps? How about historical maps? Oodles of links to even more maps? Then the PCL Map Collection hosted by the University of Texas might be for you.

And if you're ever in Austin, you can go to the PCL and browse the 250,000+ maps that the online collection is culled from.

The PCL Maps Collection was posted on the blue eight years ago. Hopefully the length of time since then and the depth of the collection means it's ok to repost.

posted by kmz (13 comments total)

I LIKE MAPS. This is going to be fun. Thanks for distracting me at work for the next hour [aka the ultimate purpose of MeFi]
posted by Lacking Subtlety at 12:37 PM on November 9, 2009

I like sexy maps as if I were a professional sexy map person.
posted by Astro Zombie at 12:38 PM on November 9, 2009 [1 favorite]

They've been around a long time, too, and are enormously useful for research on different countries. Maps paint such an enormous story about geography and history that it just blows my mind that most universities don't bother diffusing this more. If it weren't for collections like PCL all we'd get on the Internet is the odd collection of 19th century maps in a restrictive DejaVu window or a metafile listing of some voluminous map collection filed away somewhere.
posted by crapmatic at 12:41 PM on November 9, 2009

I do! I am! I like maps!

Seriously this is great. And I recommend the extensive list of further map links as well. The Yale list of Cartographic Curiosities brought me a proper map, which is (obviously) one which also illustrates sea monsters. It also links to the Love and Marriage map, which is charming, but would make more sense to me if I understood the language it was written in (but aint it always the way...)

Can't get enough of them maps.
posted by the cat's pyjamas at 12:54 PM on November 9, 2009 [1 favorite]

Yeah, this is about the best online map collection ever.
posted by blucevalo at 1:07 PM on November 9, 2009

Oh god, I could stare at those contours all day...

fap, map, map, map, map, map...
posted by twine42 at 1:42 PM on November 9, 2009

Do you like maps?

Yes, I do.

How about historical maps?

Yes.

Oodles of links to even more maps?

Yes.

Then the PCL Map Collection hosted by the University of Texas might be for you.

It certainly is.
posted by absalom at 2:07 PM on November 9, 2009 [2 favorites]

The pursuit of Mappiness . . .
posted by bearwife at 3:37 PM on November 9, 2009

When I was in Florence in the Palazo Pitti (possibly spell wrong), there was a fantastic room full of maps and a large globe. The maps, dating back to the 16th and 17th centuries were amazing to look at.

(This reminds me of that and is incredibly cool.)
posted by Hactar at 5:18 PM on November 9, 2009

The Leventhal Map Center at the Boston Public Library has tons of scrollable, zoomable online copies of all sorts of maps. As you might expect, it has lots of maps of colonial Boston and New England, but also old European maps and bird's-eye maps.
posted by adamg at 6:17 PM on November 9, 2009 [1 favorite]

ooo! My mother worked there.

I would skip school back in the 80's and hang out in the map room there, and it was great back then.
posted by Zangal at 1:59 PM on November 10, 2009

There are even strange maps out there!
posted by Evilspork at 2:07 PM on November 10, 2009 [1 favorite]

For future reference: an alternative to posting the Treaty of Westphalia.
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 4:52 PM on November 10, 2009