This dataset comprises 2 collections of maps. The facsmile collection contains all the marginalia information from the original map as well as the map itself, while the georectified collection contains just the map with an associated index for locating them. Each collection comprises approximately 101 000 monochrome images at 6-inch (1:10560) scale. Each image is supplied in .tiff format with appropriate ArcView and MapInfo world files, and shows the topography for all areas of England, Wales and Scotland as either quarter or, in some cases, full sheets. The images will cover the approximate epochs 1880's, 1900's, 1910's, 1920's and 1930's, but note that coverage is not countrywide for each epoch. The data was purchased by BGS from Sitescope, who obtained it from three sources - Royal Geographical Society, Trinity College Dublin and the Ordnance Survey. The data is for internal use by BGS staff on projects, and is available via a customised application created for the network GDI enabling users to search for and load the maps of their choice. The dataset will have many uses across all the geoscientific disciplines across which BGS operates, and should be viewed as a valuable addition to the BGS archive. There has been a considerable amount of work done during 2005, 2006 and 2007 to improve the accuracy of the OS Historic Map Collection. All maps should now be located to +- 50m or better. This is the best that can be achieved cost effectively. There are a number of reasons why the maps are inaccurate. Firstly, the original maps are paper and many are over 100 years old. They have not been stored in perfect condition. The paper has become distorted to varying degrees over time. The maps were therefore not accurate before scanning. Secondly, different generations of maps will have used different surveying methods and different spatial referencing systems. The same geographical object will not necessarily be in the same spatial location on subsequent editions. Thirdly, we are discussing maps, not plans. There will be cartographic generalisations which will affect the spatial representation and location of geographic objects. Finally, the georectification was not done in BGS but by the company from whom we purchased the maps. The company no longer exists. We do not know the methodology used for georectification.

National Library of Scotland Historic Maps APIHistorical Maps of Great Britain for use in mashups and ArcGIS Onlinehttps://nls.tileserver.com/https://maps.nls.uk/projects/api/index.htmlThis seamless historic map can be:embedded in your own websiteused for research purposesused as a backdrop for your own markers or geographic dataused to create derivative work (such as OpenStreetMap) from it.The mapping is based on out-of-copyright Ordnance Survey maps, dating from the 1920s to the 1940s.The map can be directly opened in a web browser by opening the Internet address: https://nls.tileserver.com/The map is ready for natural zooming and panning with finger pinching and dragging.How to embed the historic map in your websiteThe easiest way of embedding the historical map in your website is to copy < paste this HTML code into your website page. Simple embedding (try: hello.html):You can automatically position the historic map to open at a particular place or postal address by appending the name as a "q" parameter - for example: ?q=edinburgh Embedding with a zoom to a place (try: placename.html):You can automatically position the historic map to open at particular latitude and longitude coordinates: ?lat=51.5&lng=0&zoom=11. There are many ways of obtaining geographic coordinates. Embedding with a zoom to coordinates (try: coordinates.html):The map can also automatically detect the geographic location of the visitor to display the place where you are right now, with ?q=auto Embedding with a zoom to coordinates (try: auto.html):How to use the map in a mashupThe historic map can be used as a background map for your own data. You can place markers on top of it, or implement any functionality you want. We have prepared a simple to use JavaScript API to access to map from the popular APIs like Google Maps API, Microsoft Bing SDK or open-source OpenLayers or KHTML. To use our map in your mashups based on these tools you should include our API in your webpage: ... ...

Colourful and easy to use, Bartholomew’s maps became a trademark series. The maps were popular and influential, especially for recreation, and the series sold well, particularly with cyclists and tourists. To begin with, Bartholomew printed their half-inch maps in Scotland as stand-alone sheets known as 'District Sheets' and by 1886 the whole of Scotland was covered. They then revised the maps into an ordered set of 29 sheets covering Scotland in a regular format. This was first published under the title Bartholomew’s Reduced Ordnance Survey of Scotland. The half-inch maps of Scotland formed the principal content for Bartholomew's Survey Atlas of Scotland published in 1895. Bartholomew then moved south of the Border to the more lucrative but competitive market in England and Wales, whilst continuing to revise the Scottish sheets. The first complete coverage of Great Britain at the half-inch scale was achieved by 1903, and this is the layer shown here.The half-inch maps were distinctive for using different layers of colour to represent landscape relief. A subtle and innovative gradation of colour bands were employed for land at different heights. Lighter greens were used for low ground closest to sea-level, darker greens and browns for higher ground, with white used for mountain tops. Whilst layer colouring had been developed in Germany from the 1860s, Bartholomew's development of it was both innovative and influential. John Bartholomew junior (1831-1893) first used the firm's trademark layer colouring in Baddeley’s Thorough Guide to the English Lake District (1880). His son, John George Bartholomew (1860-1920), later went on to refine the style. You can see Bartholomew’s continued experimentation with layer colour palettes in the Cairngorms layer colour explorer ( http://geo.nls.uk/maps/bartholomew/layers/ )

Bartholomew based their half-inch maps on more detailed Ordnance Survey mapping at one-inch to the mile (1:63,360). The firm had published 'Reduced Ordnance Maps' of Scotland, England and Wales at this scale from the 1890s. These maps were progressively revised and updated with new information. Usually Bartholomew made revisions the sheets right up to the time of publication, so the date of publication is the best guide to the approximate date of the features shown on the map. You can view the dates of publication for the series at:

● Scotland: https://maps.nls.uk/series/bart_half_scotland.html

● England and Wales: https://maps.nls.uk/series/bart_half_england.html

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.

The Historic Flood Map is a GIS layer showing the maximum extent of individual Recorded Flood Outlines from river, the sea and groundwater springs that meet a set criteria. It shows areas of land that have previously been subject to flooding in England. This excludes flooding from surface water, except in areas where it is impossible to determine whether the source is fluvial or surface water but the dominant source is fluvial.

The majority of records began in 1946 when predecessor bodies to the Environment Agency started collecting detailed information about flooding incidents, although we hold limited details about flooding incidents prior to this date.

If an area is not covered by the Historic Flood Map it does not mean that the area has never flooded, only that we do not currently have records of flooding in this area that meet the criteria for inclusion. It is also possible that the pattern of flooding in this area has changed and that this area would now flood or not flood under different circumstances. Outlines that don’t meet this criteria are stored in the Recorded Flood Outlines dataset.

The Historic Flood Map takes into account the presence of defences, structures, and other infrastructure where they existed at the time of flooding. It will include flood extents that may have been affected by overtopping, breaches or blockages.

Flooding is shown to the land and does not necessarily indicate that properties were flooded internally.

An ARC GIS PRO shapefile mapping the turnpike roads in England and Wales for the 18th and early 19th century. The data includes details of the Turnpike Acts, years of operation, the quality of the road and the routes used by Mail coaches. The data forms the basis of the paper "Government, trusts, and the making of better roads in early nineteenth century England & Wales by Rosevear, Bogart & Shaw-Taylor.

About this layerThe Land Use Database held by the Northern Ireland Environment Agency (NIEA) provides a record of approximately 14,000 sites that have had previous industrial land use(s).What can you do with the layer?Visualisation: This layer can be used for visualisation online in web maps and in ArcGIS Pro.Analysis: This layer can be used in dashboards.Download: The data is downloadable.This layer is part of the Living Atlas of the World that provides access to thousands of beautiful and authoritative layers, web maps and apps.

Georeferenced map of 'Old and New Town of Edinburgh and Leith with the proposed docks' By John Ainslie (1804) 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.

Updated Boundaries of Ancient Woodland polygons covering England. This is the updated spatial dataset that describes the geographic extent and location of ancient woodland in England (excluding the Isles of Scilly). Ancient Woodland features will be approved county-by-county for publication throughout the first year of production until the data product coverage extends across England. Where available this dataset takes precedence over the Ancient Woodland – England dataset. The update revises the inventory to address problems and gaps in the previous iteration. Technological advances mean that small ancient woodlands (0.25-2ha) are being represented within the inventory for the first time as well as wood pasture and parkland being represented as its own category.

The inventory identifies ancient woodland sites in England. Ancient woodland is identified by studying the presence or absence of woods from historic maps, information about the wood's name, shape, internal boundaries, location relative to other features, ground survey, and aerial photography. The information recorded about each wood and stored on the Inventory Database includes its grid reference, its area in hectares and how much is semi-natural or replanted. Prior to the digitisation of the boundaries, only paper maps depicting each ancient wood at 1:50 000 scale were available. Attribution statement: © Natural England 2024. Contains OS data © Crown copyright and database rights 2024. OS AC0000851168. It includes Ancient Semi-Natural Woodland (ASNW), which retains a native tree and shrub cover; Plantation on Ancient Woodland Sites (PAWS), where the original tree cover has been felled and replaced by planting, often with conifers; Ancient Wood Pasture (AWPP), where the trees are managed in tandem with a long established tradition of grazing, characteristically with at least some veteran trees or shrubs or; Infilled Ancient Wood Pasture (IAWPP) which has become infilled with trees arising from planting or natural regeneration.

Georeferenced map of 'he City of Edinburgh and its environs' By Robert Kirkwood (1804) 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.

These maps are based on the Ordnance Survey 'Old Series' One-Inch maps of England and Wales. They were the first 1:63 360 geological map series produced by the Geological Survey in England and Wales. Sheets were initially published as full sheets, and later as quarter sheets (NW, NE, SW, SE). Earlier maps are hand-coloured, later maps are colour-printed. The maps show both solid and drift geology. The OS 'Old Series' maps extended as far north as a line drawn between Preston and the Humber. To the north of this, the maps use the same sheetlines as the 1:63 360 New Series, and carry two sheet numbers, which refer to the Old Series (91-110) and New Series (1-73) numbering. These maps are common to both series. A sheet that covers the Isle of Man is also included in the series. Geological maps represent a geologist's compiled interpretation of the geology of an area. A geologist will consider the data available at the time, including measurements and observations collected during field campaigns, as well as their knowledge of geological processes and the geological context to create a model of the geology of an area. This model is then fitted to a topographic basemap and drawn up at the appropriate scale, with generalization if necessary, to create a geological map, which is a representation of the geological model. Explanatory notes and vertical and horizontal cross sections may be published with the map. Geological maps may be created to show various aspects of the geology, or themes. These maps are hard-copy paper records stored in the National Geoscience Data Centre (NGDC) and are delivered as digital scans through the BGS website.

This layer of the map based index (GeoIndex) shows the availability of 1:63360 scale geological maps. The maps are available for most of England and Wales and show early geological mapping covering the OS Old Series one inch map sheet areas.

Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner. The aims of the project were : to ascertain how many enclosure, parochial assessment, drainage and sanitary maps survive in England and Wales; to analyse their cartographic characteristics, including scale, date and mapmaker; to analyse the way in which central and local government and their agencies used maps as instruments with which to implement policy relating to the ownership, use and taxation of land; to analyse regional and temporal variations in the coverage of England and Wales by various types of map; to obtain data on historic parish and township boundaries in England and Wales. Main Topics:

This dataset is published as Open DataBattlefieldsThis dataset comprises Battlefield Inventory sites for Scotland.The Inventory of Historic Battlefields is a list of nationally important battlefields in Scotland. It provides information on the sites to raise awareness of their significance and assist in their protection and management for the future. It is a major resource for enhancing the understanding, appreciation and enjoyment of battlefields, for promoting education and stimulating further research, and for developing their potential as attractions for visitors.https://inspire.hes.scot/arcgis/services/HES/Battlefields_Inventory_Boundary/MapServer/WMSServer?service=WMS

Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner. This research project aimed to fill a major lacuna militating against the effective exploitation of many post-medieval to mid-Victorian historical sources collected by local administrative areas: the lack of information on the boundaries of those administrative areas, the so-called 'historic' or 'ancient' parishes of England and Wales. It is known that these districts came into being during the Middle Ages, that the map of these ecclesiastical parishes was essentially complete by the fifteenth century, that these ecclesiastical boundaries were adopted during the early modern period for secular and judicial purposes, and that boundaries remained essentially unchanged until a number of reforms from the mid-nineteenth century onwards reorganised the local administrative geography of the country. The project aimed to reconstruct those boundaries as they were before the post-nineteenth century changes.

The 1885 UK parliamentary constituencies for Ireland were re-created in 2017 as part of a conference paper delivered at the Southern Irish Loyalism in Context conference at Maynooth University. The intial map only included the territory of the Irish Free State and was created by Martin Charlton and Jack Kavanagh. The remaining six counties of Ulster were completed by Eoin McLaughlin in 2018-19, the combined result is a GIS map of all the parliamentary constituecies across the island of Ireland for the period 1885-1918. The map is available in both ESRI Shapefile format and as a GeoPackage (GPKG). The methodology for creating the constituencies is outlined in detail below.

Methodology

A map showing the outlines of the 1855 – 1918 Constituency boundaries can be found on page 401 of Parliamentary Elections in Ireland, 1801-1922 (Dublin, 1978) by Brian Walker. This forms the basis for the creation of a set of digital boundaries which can then be used in a GIS. The general workflow involves allocating an 1885 Constituency identifier to each of the 309 Electoral Divisions present in the boundaries made available for the 2011 Census of Population data release by CSO. The ED boundaries are available in ‘shapefile’ format (a de facto standard for spatial data transfer). Once a Constituency identifier has been given to each ED, the GIS operation known as ‘dissolve’ is used to remove the boundaries between EDs in the same Constituency. To begin with Walker’s map was scanned at 1200 dots per inch in JPEG form. A scanned map cannot be linked to other spatial data without undergoing a process known as georeferencing. The CSO boundaries are available with spatial coordinates in the Irish National Grid system. The goal of georeferencing is to produce a rectified version of the map together with a world file. Rectification refers to the process of recomputing the pixel positions in the scanned map so that they are oriented with the ING coordinate system; the world file contains the extent in both the east-west and north-south directions of each pixel (in metres) and the coordinates of the most north-westerly pixel in the rectified image.

Georeferencing involves the identification of Ground Control Points – these are locations on the scanned map for which the spatial coordinates in ING are known. The Georeferencing option in ArcGIS 10.4 makes this a reasonably pain free task. For this map 36 GCPs were required for a local spline transformation. The Redistribution of Seats Act 1885 provides the legal basis for the constituencies to be used for future elections in England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland. Part III of the Seventh Schedule of the Act defines the Constituencies in terms of Baronies, Parishes (and part Parishes) and Townlands for Ireland. Part III of the Sixth Schedule provides definitions for the Boroughs of Belfast and Dublin.

The CSO boundary collection also includes a shapefile of Barony boundaries. This makes it possible code a barony in two ways: (i) allocated completely to a Division or (ii) split between two Divisions. For the first type, the code is just the division name, and for the second the code includes both (or more) division names. Allocation of these names to the data in the ED shapefile is accomplished by a spatial join operation. Recoding the areas in the split Baronies is done interactively using the GIS software’s editing option. EDs or groups of EDs can be selected on the screen, and the correct Division code updated in the attribute table. There are a handful of cases where an ED is split between divisions, so a simple ‘majority’ rule was used for the allocation. As the maps are to be used at mainly for displaying data at the national level, a misallocation is unlikely to be noticed. The final set of boundaries was created using the dissolve operation mentioned earlier. There were a dozen ED that had initially escaped being allocated a code, but these were quickly updated. Similarly, a few of the EDs in the split divisions had been overlooked; again updating was painless. This meant that the dissolve had to be run a few more times before all the errors have been corrected.

For the Northern Ireland districts, a slightly different methodology was deployed which involved linking parishes and townlands along side baronies, using open data sources from the OSM Townlands.ie project and OpenData NI.

This map of Medieval England contains a wealth of historical information and sites as well as beautiful illustrations. Published in October 1979 as a companion to the modern map "British Isles".>> Order print map <<

This dataset contains a sample of 10,000 (3.5%) out of a total of 285,846 text sequences extracted from the 1891–1896 Map of London by the Ordnance Survey (OS).

The methodology used for the automated recognition, linking, and sequencing of the text is detailed in the article Recognizing and Sequencing Multi-word Texts in Maps Using an Attentive Pointer by M. Zou et al., 2025.

Description of the content

The map is drawn at a scale of five-feet to the mile (c.a. 1:1,056). The text on the map is an invaluable source of information about the Greater London in the late Victorian period. It includes the names of streets, squares, parks, watercourses and even some estates ('Poplars', 'The Grange', 'Arbutus Lodge'). In addition, the map contains many details of the function of buildings and economic activity, such as factories ('Sweet Factory', 'Crown Linoleum Works', 'Imperial Flour Mills', 'Lion Brewery'), warehouses or commercial infrastructure ('Warehouse', 'Jamaica Wharf', 'Rag Store'), offices ('Offices'), etc. The map also mentions public buildings such as schools ('School Boys, Girls & Infants', 'Sunday School'), hospitals or clinics ('St. Saviour's Union Infirmary', 'Beulah Spa Hydropathic Establishment', 'South Western Fever Hospital'), railway stations ('Clapham Station'), post offices, banks, police stations, etc. Other social venues are also mentioned, such as public houses, i.e. pubs ('P.H.'), clubs, casinos, and recreational areas (e.g. 'Cricket Ground'). Special attention is given to churches, with a regular count of the number of seats (e.g. 'Baptist Chapel Seats for 600').

In addition, the map provides details that can be of great interest in the study of everyday life in London at the end of the 19th century. For example, there are numerous mentions of 'Stables', 'Drinking Fountain'[s] (or simply 'Fn.') or 'Urinal'[s]. Fire protection infrastructure is highlighted, e.g. fire plugs ('F.P.') and fire alarms ('F.A.'). The map also includes information on elevation (e.g. '11·6') and flood levels (e.g. 'High Water Mark of Ordinary Tides').

A list of abbreviations used in the Ordnance Survey maps, created by Richard Oliver [1], is made available by the National Library of Scotland (link).

Organization of the data

The data in 10k_text_london_OS_1890s.geojson is organized as a regular geojson file.

Example structure

{
"type": "FeatureCollection",
"features": [
{
"type": "Feature",
"geometry": {
"type": "MultiPolygon",
"coordinates": [[[ [x1, y1], [x2, y2], ...]]]
},
"properties": {
"label": "Oxford Circus",
}
},

... # Further text sequences


]
}

Image documents

The original map document consists of 729 separate sheets, digitized, georeferenced, and served as geographic tiles by the National Library of Scotland [2].

Descriptive statistics

Total Number of text sequences: 285,846
Sample size: 10,000
Total Area covered: 450 square km

Use and Citation

For any mention of this dataset, please cite :

@misc{text_london_OS_1890s,
author = {Zou, Mengjie and Petitpierre, R{\'{e}}mi and di Lenardo, Isabella},
title = {{London 1890s Ordnance Survey Text Layer}},
year = {2025},
publisher = {Zenodo},
url = {https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14982946}}

@article{recognizing_sequencing_2025,
author = {Zou, Mengjie and Dai, Tianhao and Petitpierre, R{\'{e}}mi and Vaienti, Beatrice and di Lenardo, Isabella},
title = {{Recognizing and Sequencing Multi-word Texts in Maps Using an Attentive Pointer}},
year = {2025}}

Corresponding author

Rémi PETITPIERRE - remi.petitpierre@epfl.ch - ORCID - Github - Scholar - ResearchGate

License

This project is licensed under the CC BY 4.0 License.

Liability

We do not assume any liability for the use of this dataset.

References

1. Oliver R. (2013). Ordnance Survey maps: A concise guide for historians. The Charles Close Society. London, UK. 3rd Ed. 320 pages
2. Ordnance Survey, London, five feet to the mile, 1893-1896 (1896), https://maps.nls.uk/os/townplans-england/london-1056-1890s.html, digitized by the National Library of Scotland (NLS)

This layer of the map based index (GeoIndex) shows the location of earthquakes within the UK. The historical catalogue has been compiled, in general, from macroseismic observations (ie felt effects). Before 1700, only earthquakes with magnitudes of 4.0 ML or greater are included. After 1700, all known events with magnitudes of 3.0 ML or greater are included together with some other, smaller ones. Accuracies of magnitude, location, and origin time vary with the quality of information available for this period as they do for instrumental measurements in the post 1970 period. In that case, variations are largely a function of the seismograph station coverage, which has been improving up to the present day.

With the historic maps in the Geography Visualiser we can make comparisons of the coastline between 1900, the 1940's and present day.This video will show you how.