Old Maps Online

Old Maps Online

Old Maps Online is a free historical map viewer that allows you to explore antique map images and georeference them. It contains over 370,000 maps from libraries and archives around the world.
Education & Reference Historical Reference
Old Maps Online image
maps historical-maps antique-maps map-viewer georeferencing
Old Maps Online alternatives ➤

Old Maps Online: Explore Antique Maps & Georeference

Free historical map viewer with over 370,000 maps from libraries and archives worldwide

What is Old Maps Online?

Old Maps Online is a free web application to view, search, share and georeference historical maps. It was launched in 2010 by Klokan Technologies GmbH in cooperation with libraries and archives from all over the world.

The site contains a collection of over 370,000 maps and views from the 15th to 20th century. The maps come from institutions like the British Library, Library of Congress, National Library of Scotland, New York Public Library, Biblioteca Nacional de España, and many more.

Users can browse the map images by location, contributing institution, date, theme, and other categories. There is a search function to find maps by keyword or geographic area. Once you select a map, you can zoom and pan to explore it in detail.

Registered users can bookmark maps, georeference them by placing control points to match them with modern map views, make annotations, and collect maps into thematic sets for sharing. There are also drawing/measuring tools available.

Some key features of Old Maps Online:

  • Free access to hundreds of thousands of high quality scans of antique and historical maps
  • Intuitive map viewer with zoom, pan, and georeferencing capabilities
  • Advanced search functions and map filtering/faceting options
  • User accounts to bookmark, annotate, collect and share map images
  • Drawing and measurement tools
  • Embed maps from the site into external webpages

Old Maps Online makes historical cartography easily accessible to everyone for non-commercial use. It's an invaluable resource for map enthusiasts, historians, genealogists, geographers, and anyone interested in the history of cartography.

Old Maps Online Features

Features

  1. Allows browsing and exploring historical maps
  2. Provides georeferencing tools to align maps to modern coordinate systems
  3. Contains over 370,000 high resolution maps from libraries and archives globally
  4. Has powerful search and filtering capabilities
  5. Supports creating and sharing custom map collections

Pricing

  • Free

Pros

Completely free to use with no limits

Massive collection of antique maps from all over the world

Intuitive user interface

Useful georeferencing features

Active open source development community

Cons

Limited native mobile app availability

No advanced GIS analysis capabilities

Can be slow to load very large or high resolution maps

Georeferencing requires some technical GIS skills

Somewhat limited map metadata

Official Links

Official Website
https://www.oldmapsonline.org/

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