Historical maps contain a wealth of information not generally available, but they must be referenced to well-known coordinate systems for maximum use in spatial analysis. Existing georeferencing tools are essentially manual, requiring considerable data entry, much panning and zooming, and precise on-screen digitizing. Here we present alternative approaches based on pattern-matching and spatial computing intended to overcome the inefficiencies of standard tools. We also describe and make available two computer programs implementing the methods discussed. The first, designed for large-scale quadrangles, locates map boundaries, finds ground control points, and produces georeferenced images without operator assistance. Experiments show that quadrangle georeferencing can be reliably automated (88% success rate in our tests). A second program, developed for general maps at any scale, uses self-learning and other approaches to overcome most of the manual aspects of georeferencing. Both programs find control points with single-pixel accuracy, yield transform errors on the order of map linewidth, and can produce warped or unwarped images as desired.

Mapping application that features several historical georeferenced maps that cover parts of Milwaukee County. Historical map imagery includes: 1876 Plat Map 1894 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map 1898 Baist's Property Atlas Wisconsin Historical Society 1910 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map1927 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map The application includes a tool that allows the user to swipe between the historical map imagery and a current basemap. Map imagery was provided by the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee American Geographical Society Library (unless otherwise noted) and georeferenced by MCLIO staff.

This data publication contains multiple maps of Puerto Rico scanned at 600 dots per inch: full map scans, scans clipped to mapped areas only, and georeferenced scans of 1:10,000-scale land-use maps from 1950-1951 that were produced by the Rural Land Classification Program of Puerto Rico, a project led by Dr. Clarence F. Jones of Northwestern University. These historical maps classified land use and land cover into 20 different classes, including 13 different types of crops, two classes of forests, four classes of grasslands and other areas, which is a general class for non-rural areas. This package includes maps from 76 out of the 78 municipalities of Puerto Rico, covering 422 quadrangles of a 443-quadrangle grid for mainland Puerto Rico. It excludes the island municipalities of Vieques and Culebra, Mona Island and minor outlying islands.The Rural Land Classification Program of Puerto Rico produced 430 1:10,000-scale maps. That program also produced one island-wide land-use map with more generalized delineations of land use. Previously, Kennaway and Helmer (2007) scanned and georeferenced the island-wide map, and they converted it to vector and raster formats with embedded georeferencing and classification. This data publication contains the higher-resolution maps, which will provide more precise historical context for forests. It will better inform management efforts for the sustainable use of forest lands and to build resilience and resistance to various future disturbances for these and other tropical forest landscapes.

The maps were scanned and georeferenced to help with the planning and application process for the USDA Forest Service (USDA) Forest Legacy Program, a competition-based program administered by the USDA Forest Service in partnership with State agencies to encourage the protection of privately owned forest lands through conservation easements or land purchases. Geospatial products and maps will also be used by personnel at the Department of Natural and Environmental Resources and partners in Non-Governmental Organizations working with the Forest Stewardship Program. This latter program provides technical assistance and forest management plans to private landowners for the conservation and effective management of private forests across the US. The information will provide local historical context on forest change patterns that will enhance the recommendations of forest management practices for private forest landowners. These data will also be useful for urban forest professionals to understand the land legacies as a basis for planning green infrastructure interventions.

Data depict the rural areas of Puerto Rico around 1951 and how they were classified by geographers then. Having it georeferenced allows managers, teachers, students, the public and scientists to compare how these classifications have changed throughout the years. It will allow more precise identification and mapping of the past land use of present forests, forest stand age, and the past juxtaposition of different land uses relative to each other. These factors can affect forest species composition, biodiversity and ecosystem services. Forest stand age, past land-use type and past disturbance type, forest example, help gauge current forest structure, carbon storage, or rates of carbon accumulation. Another example of how the maps are important is for understanding how watersheds have changed through time, which helps assess how forest ecosystem services related to hydrology evolve. These maps will also help gauge how the forests of Puerto Rico are responding to recent disturbances, and how past disturbances over a range of scales relate to these responses.For more information on the Rural Land Classification Program of Puerto Rico, generated maps, and the island-wide land-use map, please see Jones (1952), Jones and Berrios (1956), as well as Kennaway and Helmer (2007).

The Army Map Service was a cartographic agency that focused on the compilation, publication, and distribution of military topographic maps. This collection contains georeferenced historical maps of India and Pakistan collected from 1955-1963 from the U502 series. The maps are provided as TIFF files that include spatial references that can be read by GIS software. These maps are organized by segments which are then divided into square tiles. The corners of each of these tiles contain an anchor point with corresponding coordinates alongside additional anchor points like a: coastal region, legend, glossary, scale, and a location diagram.

The data sets include 10 scanned historical maps (Plan 1-9 and 11) from 1920 of the region of Grosses Moos in Switzerland. The maps have been drawn by different surveyors with the plane table principle in 1920 represented with a map including topographical information such as contour lines, water bodies and houses and other urban infrastructures. In addition, the original measurement points were marked with a grid of 20-30m spacing and additional points if needed. These individual points were digitized by first georeferencing the individual maps with QGIS and then digitising each single measurement point along with their respective recorded heights. 44319 points were digites in LV03 (Swiss coordinate system) with the corresponding height (stored in the file "HoehendatenPunktwolke_Ins_1920.geojson").

This Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) compliant Web Map Service (WMS) includes a mosaic of historical USGS topographic maps of New Jersey surveyed from 1881 to 1924. This product is to be used for reference purposes only. The original historical paper maps were distorted or damaged to varying degrees due to age and use. During visual testing, it appeared that spatial inaccuracies in the images exceed 200 feet in several locations. The digital product has not been corrected for distortion nor vertical displacement. Consequently, this product does not meet the National Standard for Spatial Data Accuracy (NSSDA). The mosaic was produced by scanning 15 minute (1:62,500 scale) historical USGS topographic paper maps at 600 dpi and saving them as Tagged Image File Format (TIFF) images. The scanned TIFFs have an approximate pixel resolution of 17 feet. The map images were georeferenced to a fishnet in their native coordinate system and then reprojected to NAD83 NJ State Plane coordinates for use in this service. In most client software, the default spatial reference system of the service will be Geographic Coordinates, WGS84. Several other coordinate systems are supported natively by the WMS (see Supplemental Information).

The ArcGIS Online USGS Topographic Maps image service contains over 181,000 historical topographic quadrangle maps (quads) dating from 1879 to 2006. These maps are part of the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection (HTMC) which includes all the historical quads that had been printed since the USGS topographic mapping program was initiated in 1879. Previously available only as printed lithographic copies, the historical maps were scanned “as is” to create high-resolution images that capture the content and condition of each map sheet. All maps were georeferenced, and map metadata was captured as part of the process.

For the Esri collection, the scanned maps were published as this ArcGIS Online image service which can be viewed on the web and allows users to download individual scanned images. Esri’s collection contains historical quads (excluding orthophotos) dating from 1879 to 2006 with scales ranging from 1:10,000 to 1:250,000. The scanned maps can be used in ArcGIS Pro, ArcGIS Online, and ArcGIS Enterprise. They can also be downloaded as georeferenced TIFs for use in these and other applications.

We make it easy for you to explore and download these maps, or quickly create an ArcGIS Online map, using our Historical Topo Map Explorer app. The app provides a visual interface to search and explore the historical maps by geographic extent, publication year, and map scale. And you can overlay the historical maps on a satellite image or 3D hillshade and add labels for current geographic features.

This georectified digital map portrays Oregon, Washington, Idaho and British Columbia. Map date: 1863. The original paper map was scanned, georeferenced, and rectified to broaden access and to facilitate use in GIS software.Georeferenced source data: https://insideidaho.org/data/ago/uofi/library/historic-maps-spec/bancroftsMapOfORWAID.tif.zipNon-georeferenced source data: https://digital.lib.uidaho.edu/digital/collection/spec_hm/id/6/rec/1Original printed map is in Special Collections and Archives, University of Idaho Library, Moscow, ID 83844-2350; http://www.lib.uidaho.edu/special-collections/.

Accuracy result metrics from the automated georeferencing of real-world country-maps.

Georeferenced (to WGS1984) and cropped set of about 820 historic maps of Burma at a scale of 1 inch per mile (63,360) covering about 75% of the country. Those topographic maps, originally produced and published by the Great Trigonometrical Survey of India between 1899 and 1946, have been scanned and shared with the public as part of the "Old Survey Of India Maps” Community under a CC BY 4.0 International Licence. Many of these maps are reprints of earlier maps produced before the war. Most mapsheets are early editions (edition 1 or edition 2).

Each of the 820 map sheet scans was georeferenced using the Latitude-Longitude corner coordinates in Everest 1830 projection. Those map sheets were cropped, keeping only the map area - to allow a seamless mosaic without the mapframe overlapping adjacent map sheets when several map sheets are put together in a GIS. Those cropped map sheets were projected from Everest 1830 to WGS1984 (EPSG4326) - standard GPS - projection to make them easier to use and combine with other GIS data.

Those map sheets can be loaded directly in any GIS such as QGIS or ESRI ArcGIS as well as Google Earth.

• The mm_OI_JBv2024 folder contains the cropped end georeferenced map sheets in jpg-format as well as accompagning georeference and metadata incl.
  
  • The mm_OI_JBv2024_kmlLinks contains kml files to easily load the mapsheets into Google Earth
  • The mm_historicOI_EPSG4326.gdb contains an ESRI mosaic dataset to easily load all mapsheets into ArcGIS
• The mm_OI_JBv2024_scanMaps folder contains the uncropped original map scans (renamed though) in jpg-format.
• The mm_topoOI_JBv7_masterlist.xlsx is a masterlist cataloguing all map sheets for easier use and matching them with the original source files as shared as part of the "Old Survey Of India Maps" (e.g. to identify new mapsheets should new maps be released)
• The indexMaps folder contains small scale index maps to locate the map sheets using their map sheet Grid-Letter-nomenclature

All georeferenced map scans are based on maps shared by John Brown via Zenodo

• https://zenodo.org/records/8040798 (63k Maps of Burma, version 7, Published June 14, 2023)
• https://zenodo.org/records/10463372 (63k Maps of Burma--additional 1--20240105, version 1, Published January 5, 2024)

The file naming convention is to first give the number of the 4 degree x 4 degree block followed by the letter (A to P) of the sixteen 1 degree x 1 degree blocks in each 4 degree block eg. 38 D, and this is followed by a number from 1 to 16 to indicate the number of the map in the 1 degree block.

This Number Letter Number designation is followed by the map series type either OI (contains a LCC grid) or OILatLon (only has a Lat-Lon grid), followed by the edition and year of the edition, followed by the date of publication/print. If the information is not available an "X" (for edition) or "0000" (for an unknown year) is used. A best-guess approach was used if the edition and print year and version information was ambiguous.

The files as shared via the "Old Survey Of India Maps" have been renamed to standardize the file naming, sometimes correcting them and to make them unique in the case several editions of the same map sheet were available.

A topographical index produced by the Survey of India is provided to assist the viewer in selecting a particular map of interest.

The Lake Dataset Extracted from Qing Dynasty Historical Maps (Geometrically Corrected and Georeferenced) contains vectorized lake features derived from two representative 18th-century official maps of China—the Huang Yu Quan Lan Tu (Kangxi Edition) and the Nei Fu Yu Tu (Qianlong Edition). Both historical maps were geometrically corrected and georeferenced by aligning them with high-resolution contemporary basemaps to ensure spatial consistency with modern geographic coordinate systems.The dataset focuses on lake distributions in the southern Mongolian Plateau. After the rectification process, lake boundaries were manually vectorized, and related attribute information was extracted, including lake centroid coordinates, perimeters, and surface areas. This dataset enables comparative spatial analysis between historical and modern hydrographic features and supports the quantitative evaluation of cartographic accuracy in Qing-era maps.This dataset is intended for use in historical geographic information systems (Historical GIS), cartographic distortion analysis, environmental and geomorphological change monitoring, and digital humanities research. All data are provided in standard Shapefile format and projected using the Albers Equal-Area Projection, which is suitable for analyzing regional-scale spatial patterns and lake areas. The dataset is fully compatible with mainstream GIS software platforms.

ArcGIS and QGIS map packages, with ESRI shapefiles for the DSM2 Model Grid. These are not finalized products. Locations in these shapefiles are approximate.

Monitoring Stations - shapefile with approximate locations of monitoring stations.

DSM2 Grid 2025-05-28 Historical

FC_2023.01

DSM2 v8.2.0, calibrated version:

• dsm2_8_2_grid_map_calibrated.mpkx - ArcGIS Pro map package containing all layers and symbology for the calibrated grid map.
• dsm2_8_2_grid_map_calibrated.mpk - ArcGIS Desktop map package containing all layers and symbology for the calibrated grid map.
• dsm2_8_2_0_calibrated_grid_map_qgis.zip - QGIS map package containing all layers and symbology for the calibrated grid map.
• dsm2_8_2_0_calibrated_gridmap_shapefiles.zip - A zip file containing all the shapefiles used in the above map packages:
• dsm2_8_2_0_calibrated_channels_centerlines - channel centerlines, follwing the path of CSDP centerlines
• dsm2_8_2_0_calibrated_network_channels - channels represented by straight line segments which are connected the upstream and downstream nodes
• dsm2_8_2_0_calibrated_nodes - DSM2 nodes
• dsm2_8_2_0_calibrated_dcd_only_nodes - Nodes that are only used by DCD
• dsm2_8_2_0_calibrated_and_dcd_nodes - Nodes that are shared by DSM2 and DCD
• dsm2_8_2_0_calibrated_and_smcd_nodes - Nodes that are shared by DSM2 and SMCD
• dsm2_8_2_0_calibrated_gates_actual_loc - The approximate actual locations of each gate in DSM2
• dsm2_8_2_0_calibrated_gates_grid_loc - The locations of each gate in the DSM2 model grid
• dsm2_8_2_0_calibrated_reservoirs - The approximate locations of the reservoirs in DSM2
• dsm2_8_2_0_calibrated_reservoir_connections - Lines showing connections from reservoirs to nodes in DSM2

DSM2 v8.2.1, historical version:

• DSM2 v8.2.1, historical version grid map release notes (PDF), updated 7/12/2022
• DSM2 v8.2.1, historical version grid map, single zoom level (PDF)
• DSM2 v8.2.1, historical version grid map, multiple zoom levels (PDF) - PDF grid map designed to be printed on 3 foot wide plotter paper.
• DSM2 v8.2.1, historical version map package for ArcGIS Desktop: A map package for ArcGIS Desktop containing the grid map layers with symbology.
• DSM2 v8.2.1, historical version grid map shapefiles (zip): A zip file containing the shapefiles used in the grid map.

Change Log

7/12/2022: The document "DSM2 v8.2.1, historical version grid map release notes (PDF)" was corrected by removing section 4.4, which incorrectly stated that the grid included channels 710-714, representing the Toe Drain, and that the Yolo Flyway restoration area was included.

This layer is a georeferenced raster image of an historic regional map of Egypt, titled "Map of Egypt Engraved for the Modern Traveller," originally created by Sydney Hall in 1827. All map collar and inset information is also available as part of the raster image, including any inset maps, profiles, statistical tables, directories, text, illustrations, or other information associated with the principal map. This map was georeferenced by the Stanford University Geospatial Center using a Transverse Mercator projection. This map is part of a selection of digitally scanned and georeferenced historic maps of Africa from the Oscar I. Norwich Collection at Stanford University.

description: Minnesota's original public land survey plat maps were created between 1848 and 1907 during the first government land survey of the state by the U.S. Surveyor General's Office. This collection of more than 3,600 maps includes later General Land Office (GLO) and Bureau of Land Management maps up through 2001. Scanned images of the maps are available in several digital formats and most have been georeferenced. The survey plat maps, and the accompanying survey field notes, serve as the fundamental legal records for real estate in Minnesota; all property titles and descriptions stem from them. They also are an essential resource for surveyors and provide a record of the state's physical geography prior to European settlement. Finally, they testify to many years of hard work by the surveying community, often under very challenging conditions. The deteriorating physical condition of the older maps (drawn on paper, linen, and other similar materials) and the need to provide wider public access to the maps, made handling the original records increasingly impractical. To meet this challenge, the Office of the Secretary of State (SOS), the State Archives of the Minnesota Historical Society (MHS), the Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT), MnGeo (formerly the Land Management Information Center - LMIC) and the Minnesota Association of County Surveyors collaborated in a digitization project which produced high quality (800 dpi), 24-bit color images of the maps in standard TIFF, JPEG and PDF formats - nearly 1.5 terabytes of data. Funding was provided by MnDOT. In 2010-11, most of the JPEG plat map images were georeferenced. The intent was to locate the plat images to coincide with statewide geographic data without appreciably altering (warping) the image. This increases the value of the images in mapping software where they can be used as a background layer.; abstract: Minnesota's original public land survey plat maps were created between 1848 and 1907 during the first government land survey of the state by the U.S. Surveyor General's Office. This collection of more than 3,600 maps includes later General Land Office (GLO) and Bureau of Land Management maps up through 2001. Scanned images of the maps are available in several digital formats and most have been georeferenced. The survey plat maps, and the accompanying survey field notes, serve as the fundamental legal records for real estate in Minnesota; all property titles and descriptions stem from them. They also are an essential resource for surveyors and provide a record of the state's physical geography prior to European settlement. Finally, they testify to many years of hard work by the surveying community, often under very challenging conditions. The deteriorating physical condition of the older maps (drawn on paper, linen, and other similar materials) and the need to provide wider public access to the maps, made handling the original records increasingly impractical. To meet this challenge, the Office of the Secretary of State (SOS), the State Archives of the Minnesota Historical Society (MHS), the Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT), MnGeo (formerly the Land Management Information Center - LMIC) and the Minnesota Association of County Surveyors collaborated in a digitization project which produced high quality (800 dpi), 24-bit color images of the maps in standard TIFF, JPEG and PDF formats - nearly 1.5 terabytes of data. Funding was provided by MnDOT. In 2010-11, most of the JPEG plat map images were georeferenced. The intent was to locate the plat images to coincide with statewide geographic data without appreciably altering (warping) the image. This increases the value of the images in mapping software where they can be used as a background layer.

This historic paper map provides an historical perspective of the cultural and physical landscape during this time period. The wide range of information provided on these maps make them useful in the study of historic geography. As this map has been georeferenced, it also can be used as a background layer in conjunction with other GIS data.

These zip files includes a georeferenced (Projected > UTM > NAD 1927 > Zone 14 North) set of Oklahoma Counties General Highway and Transportation Maps. The maps range in date from 1936 to 1940. LeFlore County (1936) is now available in a separate zip file.

Georeferenced (to WGS1984) and cropped set of about 555 historic maps of Burma at a scale of 1 inch per two miles (1:126,720) covering most of the country. Those topographic maps, originally produced and published by the Great Trigonometrical Survey of India between 1878 and 1949, have been scanned and shared with the public as "Old Survey Of India Maps” Community under a CC BY 4.0 International Licence.

Each of the map sheet scans was georeferenced using the Latitude-Longitude corner coordinates in Everest 1830 projection. Those map sheets were cropped, keeping only the map area - to allow a seamless mosaic without the mapframe overlapping adjacent map sheets when several map sheets are put together in a GIS. Those cropped map sheets were projected from Everest 1830 to WGS1984 (EPSG:4326) - standard GPS - projection to make them easier to use and combine with other GIS data.

Many grid cells in this dataset are covered by 2 versions of map sheets - those with hill shade and only lat-lon grid and those without hill shade and featuring a LCC map grid.

Those map sheets can be loaded directly in any GIS such as QGIS or ESRI ArcGIS.

• The mm_HI_JBv2024_epsg4326 folder contains the cropped end georeferenced map sheets in jpg-format as well as accompagning georeference and metadata incl.
  
  • The mm_HI_JBv2024_epsg4326_kmlLinks contains a KML file for each map sheet facilitating their easy use in Google Earth byt linking them the georeferenced map sheet file located in the mm_HI_JBv2024_epsg4326 folder.
  • The mm_historicHI_EPSG4326.gdb contains three ESRI mosaic datasets to easily load all mapsheets, only mapheets with hillshading and lat-lon grid and only "regular" mapsheets without hillshading and LCC grid into ArcGIS
• The mm_HI_JBv2024_scanMaps folder contains the uncropped original map scans (renamed though) in jpg-format.
• The mm_historicTopoHI_JBv2024 is a masterlist cataloguing all map sheets for easier use and matching them with the original source files as shared via the "Old Survey Of India Maps” Community (e.g. to identify new mapsheets should new maps be released)

All georeferenced map scans are based on maps shared as part of the "Old Survey Of India Maps” via Zenodo. Links to each file can be found in the above mentined excel file and most can be also accessed through the zenodo repository below.

• https://zenodo.org/records/8040798 (128k Maps of South Asia, version 4, Published May 3, 2023)

The file naming convention is to first give the number of the 4 degree x 4 degree block followed by the letter (A to P) of the sixteen 1 degree x 1 degree blocks in each 4 degree block eg. 38 D, and this is followed by the cardinal direction letters (NE, NW, SE, SW) to indicate the 30x30 minutes sized map position in the 1 degree block.

This Number - Letter - Cardinal direction letter designation is followed by the year of the edition, followed by the map series type either HI-hs (hillshaded) or HI-reg (regular), followed by the map sheet title/name.

The original files as shared as part of the "Old Survey Of India Maps” have been renamed to further standardize the file naming, sometimes correcting them and to make them unique in the case several editions of the same map sheet were available.

Lineage: This version (1.01, Upload 2024-08-20) has some file attributes fixed.

This historical map series consists of the Planimetric Series printed monochrome maps named using the National Topographic System (NTS) map sheet identifier within Alberta. The Planimetric Series base maps were initiated in 1949 and derived from aerial photographs taken during the years 1949 to 1952. These maps display: Alberta Township System (ATS) - hydrographic features - provincial highways - roads - pipelines - transmission lines - municipalities. These maps are not available as GIS-ready data. All available maps are provided in Adobe PDF and TIF format. To obtain the TIF format, please contact the distributor. Geo-referenced PNG files are also available for some maps, but some are roughly georeferenced with only a few control points. Please note that the coverage for the province is incomplete and it is not known if further coverage will be added. Some maps were also updated after their initial publication, please refer to the maps for the most current dates.

Georeferenced map of 'Plan of Edinburgh and Leith, from the Survey Atlas of Scotland' By J.G. Bartholomew (1912)as part of the Visualising Urban Geographies project- view other versions of the map at http://geo.nls.uk/urbhist/resources_maps.html. Scanned map. This dataset was first accessioned in the EDINA ShareGeo Open repository on 2011-05-31 and migrated to Edinburgh DataShare on 2017-02-21.

This layer is a georeferenced raster image of an historic continental map of Africa from the 19th century. This map is part of a selection of digitally scanned and georeferenced historic maps of Africa held at Stanford University Libraries. All map collar and inset information is also available as part of the raster image, including any inset maps, profiles, statistical tables, directories, text, illustrations, or other information associated with the principal map. This map georeferenced by the Stanford University Geospatial Center using a Sinusoidal projection. This map is part of a selection of digitally scanned and georeferenced historic maps of Africa held at Stanford University Libraries.