History and Background
Maps
and atlases were among the first items
acquired when the Library of Congress
was established in 1800. It was not
until 1897, however, when the Library of
Congress moved into its own building,
that a separate Hall of Maps and Charts
was created to house the growing
collection of 47,000 maps and 1,200
atlases. The division now occupies an
area of 90,000 square feet in the
Library's James Madison Memorial
Building. The area is specifically
designed and constructed to accommodate
a variety of cartographic collections,
library functions, and a professional
and technical staff of 38 persons.
Annual
additions to the Geography and Map
Division's collections average
60,000-80,000 maps and 2,000 atlases.
Because surveying and mapping are
significant government functions and
responsibilities, approximately 60
percent of the maps and 20 percent of
the atlases are received from official
sources. Most private and commercial
cartographic works published in the
United States are acquired through
Copyright or through purchase. Many rare
and valuable maps and atlases in the
collections have been presented to the
division by generous and public-minded
citizens.
The Collections
The
Geography and Map Division of the
Library of Congress provides
cartographic and geographic information
for all parts of the world to the
Congress, Federal agencies, state and
local governments, the scholarly
community, and to the general public. It
is the largest and most comprehensive
cartographic collection in the world,
numbering over 5.2 million maps,
including 80,000 atlases, 6,000
reference works, numerous globes and
three-dimensional plastic relief models,
and a large number of cartographic
materials in other formats, including
electronic.
Among
the earliest original maps in the
collections are three manuscript
portolan atlases and 19 portolan charts
from the fourteenth through seventeenth
centuries drawn on vellum by Italian,
Portuguese, and Spanish cartographers.
The excellent collection of atlases
dates from an 1482 printed edition of
Claudius Ptolemy's Geography and
includes representative volumes of all
significant publishers of atlases for
the last five centuries. The atlases
cover individual continents, countries,
cities, and other geographic regions, as
well as the world ranging in scope from
general to topical.
Of
particular interest to genealogists and
local historians is a large collection
of U.S. county and state maps and
atlases published in the nineteenth and
early twentieth centuries. Atlases
published during the past four or five
decades and covering national, regional,
state, and provincial resources form
another noteworthy reference group.
The
division has an excellent collection of
manuscript and printed maps of colonial
America, the Revolutionary War, the War
of 1812, the Civil War, and the wars of
the twentieth century. Supplementing
these historical records are
photo-reproductions of manuscript maps
from various American and European
archives. The Hummel and Warner
collection inlcude rare manuscript and
printed maps and atlases of China,
Japan, and Korea from the seventeenth
century.
About
55 percent of the maps are individual
sheets of large- and medium-scale map
series and nautical and aeronautical
charts published during the nineteenth
and twentieth centuries. Official
topographic, geologic, soil, mineral,
and resource maps and nautical and
aeronautical charts are available for
most countries of the world.
The
collection of single maps embraces more
than two million general and special
subject maps of the world and its
various political entities, divisions,
and subdivisions, with maps of the
Americas and countries of the Western
Hemisphere predominating. North America,
the United States, each of the 50
states, and the largest cities are
especially well represented.
Among
the numerous county maps and city and
town plans are some 700,000 large-scale
Sanborn fire insurance maps, in bound
and loose sheet volumes. The Sanborn Map
Company was the dominant American
publisher of fire insurance maps and
atlases for over 100 years. Founded in
1867, the firm has issued and
periodically updated detailed plans of
12,000 American cities and towns. Some
areas are represented by as many as
eight different editions. This
collection constitutes an unrivaled
cartographic and historic record of
America's urban settlement and growth
over more that a century.
For more information on the Library of
Congress' Geography and Map Reading
Room, visit
www.loc.gov/rr/geogmap/gmpage.html.
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