Add/view old maps

General
1

Is there a way to view old maps?

Similar to https://www.oldmapsonline.org

2

Hi, OpenHistoricalMap is a slightly different project, primarily focusing on building a new map of the past. As you search for features on our homepage, you might occasionally find links to old maps that we use as sources. There’s an idea to display old maps as an underlay, but the primary purpose of the site is still the data. OldMapsOnline, the relevant categories on Wikimedia Commons, and similar projects all complement what we’re doing, and we aren’t necessarily competing with them.

If you’re looking for a way to see old maps so you can trace from them while contributing to OHM, see our guide to tracing old imagery for some tools you can use.

1 Like
3

It may depend on what you’re looking for as well as each state. I can view aerial photos of Broward County in Florida from roughly 1960-1990(?). I’ve also fired off FIOA requests to TxDot for old images as well as plans for roads in the Lubbock and Amarillo districts. I also do some minor sidwork for a website for abandoned airfields, which shows older photos of airfields (especially military) in use.

It all depends on what you’re looking for.

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4

Hi @Jason001 & welcome to OHM!

Were you interested in just viewing the old maps or for tracing their contents?

5

Hi! I’m also interested in seeing more details on older maps, specifically regional boundaries. For example, around the year 500 there are many empires and kingdoms around Europe and Asia that aren’t present in OHM right now. OldMapsOnline is a great resource, and there is also this GitHub repo with GeoJSON data. Is there an easy way to import either of these to OHM?

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6

Unfortunately, HistoricBorders.app’s data is under the GPL, so we’d need their permission to import it under more generous terms. But we could make use of their sources for our own mapping. That would probably be more useful than simply importing anyways, since adding boundaries to OHM often requires reconciling them with existing boundary relations and other kinds of features.