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Online Maps - Modern, Digital, GIS, Route Finders

(See also sections on Producers of Current Maps, Information Sheets 1D to 1F)

Aeronautical charts from SkyVector.

AfricaMap. 50+ mappable layers for African data.

agcensus. An EDINA product which provides grid square agricultural census data for England, Scotland and Wales. Map and download data is derived from Agricultural and Horticultural Censuses of Great Britain. Provides realistic estimates of what is produced, how much is produced and where it was produced.

Alexandria Digital Research Library (ADRL). A distributed digital library with collections of georeferenced materials, including maps.

Ancient World Mapping Centre. Plenty of free maps of the ancient world in various formats, including the “Peutinger Map” of the Roman World. Includes some outline maps.

ANIDA - Atlas Nacional Interactivo de ArgentinaMaps and geo-referenced content relating to environmental, social, demographic, political and economic data. Published by the Instituto Geográfico Nacional (Argentina).

Animated Maps. The Map-as-History Subscription but can view. Atlas of Early Printing. Growth of London. Ollie Bye's Historical Animations

Arctic maritime jurisdiction map. From the International Boundaries Research Unit.

Boundary Data from UK Data Servive.

British Geological Survey. Produces geological maps of Great Britain. Various online map resources. See Digital Geological Map of Great Britain project (formerly known as DiGMapGB) for access to digital data for download and BGS Maps Portal for old and new geological maps and sections (including Ireland). GeoIndex is the most comprehensive viewer containing all geological themes. See also User guide for the BGS Geology : 50k dataset (V8)

Cambodia : Atlas of Cambodia. 'Created to provide civil society, government institutions, development partners and the public at large with information on the state of the environment and natural resources in Cambodia and related social and economic issues. Data is based on data collected during the programme period from a number of the Danida funded projects during 2001-2006'.

CasWeb. Web interface to statistics and related information from the United Kingdom Census of Population. Available to any member of a UK Higher or Further Academic Institution. Registration required.

Census Support. From the UK Data Service Census Support team, this site provides access to a range of census-related resources.

CIA - World Factbook. Country level information and some maps.

Collins Bartholomew. Find out about their map data products (available to purchase) and also look at the Internet Mapping section where you can view small scale maps of the whole World.

Digimap. Online service run by EDINA that delivers a range of Ordnance Survey and other map data of GB (including historic Ordnance Survey, aerial photography and geological data) to UK Tertiary Education. The data are available either for download to use with appropriate application software such as GIS or CAD, or as maps generated by Digimap online. You need to be a registered user, click here for more information. Includes some global data.

Digital Map Library. Maintained by the Library of the Earth Sciences Department of Cambridge University.

Diva-GIS. Free computer program for mapping and geographic data analysis. With DIVA-GIS you can make maps of the world, or of a very small area, using, for example, state boundaries, rivers, a satellite image, and the locations of sites where an animal species was observed.

EDINA. Geographic data - mostly British map and statistical data - is available from EDINA. 

Election Maps. Maps of electoral boundaries of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

Environment Agency. Includes, for example, flood-risk maps.

Euratlas. The History and Geography of Europe and the World. Includes, e.g., detailed analysis/comparison of Europe in 1200 and 1900. A commercial site from a Swiss Historical Cartographer, but a vast amount is freely available

Eurogeographics - Open Maps for Europe. and EuroBoundaryMap.

France - Code Officiel Géographique. Small scale maps and statistics for French administrative areas.

France - Geoportal. Online mapping facility including modern and historic mapping.

Free GIS Data. Compiled by Robin Wilson, a freelancer in GIS.

Geofabrik. Free data from the OpenStreetMap project and use the lean OpenStreetMap tools for cartography of all kind. Overpass-turbo is also good for extracting specific OSM attributes:

GeoGratis. Portal provided by the Earth Sciences Sector (ESS) of Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) which provides geospatial data for Canada at no cost via your Web browser. Includes access to "Atlas of Canada" Toporama.

Geology.com. Online reference maps and Landsat images, e.g. of U.S. states and countries of the world.

GeospatialArt. By Nikolas R. Schiller an experimental cartographer living in Washington, DC.

Geographic Information System (GIS) and Georeferencing Tools and Map Making Software - Open Source and others:

Arc GIS Online. GIS Lite! Create a free account. Upload your own data or access a collection of basemaps, demographic maps, image services, and data from the authoritative content from commercial data providers and the GIS user communities around the world.

Arc GIS Explorer Desktop. GIS Lite! Free easy to use GIS program from ESRI. You can choose a basemap and add local data such as KMLs, shapefiles, geodatabases, rasters, or locations from a spreadsheet. Users can also access mapping services such as ArcIMS or WMS

Cartogrammar. Browse cartograms and download from a Cartogram Gallery, create and customise new cartograms, download cartogram API documentation, download HTML required to embed cartogram production into your own website.

Free Mapping Tools (previously known as 'FreeGIS.org.') Digital mapping data translators for GIS and other mapping utilities.

Georeferencing.  David Rumsey collection ; British Library Old Maps Online / British Library ; Old Maps Online Georeferencer subscription detailMAPRIKA (allows you to upload a JPEG or PNG image f any map and then georeference it to: Google Maps, Bing Maps, OpenStreetMap).

Geospatial Analysis: a comprehensive guide to principles, techniques and software tools. Website, book, ebook.

GeoViz : Software Reviews from British Cartographic Society members.

GMapCreator. A freeware application designed to make thematic mapping using Google Maps simpler. From the Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis is a (CASA), University College London.

GMT. "Open source collection of ~60 tools for manipulating geographic and Cartesian data sets (including filtering, trend fitting, gridding, projecting, etc.) and producing Encapsulated PostScript File (EPS) illustrations."

GRASS. Desktop GIS tool. Free, open source and available for Windows, Mac OSX and Linux.

Grime. GIS related news and downloads.

gvSIG. Open source GIS software.

Inkscape. Open Source vector graphics editor, with capabilities similar to Illustrator, CorelDraw, or Xara X, using the W3C standard Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) file format, i.e. it will help you to make maps!

makeaclickablemap.com

MapBox Studio. Create tools for anyone to design and publish custom maps.

MapServer. Open Source platform for publishing spatial data and interactive mapping applications to the web.

MapMe.com. GIS Lite! Users can customized maps by adding points, labels, lines, images, then share their product with others via URLs or widgets.

MapWindow. "A free, extensible, geographic information system (GIS) that can be used: as an alternative desktop GIS, to distribute data to others, to develop and distribute custom spatial data analyses."

OpenLayers. "Makes it easy to put a dynamic map in any web page".

Planiglobe. Maps at 1:1,000,000. Add places, etc.

Public Profiler. A range of spatial information tools for profiling the public, the public sector and commerce.

Quantum GIS Project (QGIS). Open Source Geographic Information System (GIS).

Quick Task Sheets. From Iowa State University Extension and Outreach Geospatial Technology Program. Provide quick, easy instruction on performing specific tasks in ArcGIS. New sheets added regularly.

Scribble Maps. GIS Lite! Free! Enable users to create customized maps online.

Sketchmap (previously known as 'Find Free Maps.co.uk'). Create and customize your own maps. UK only. Includes geology layers and information from organisations such as RSPB and Natural England.

Social Source Commons GIS Toolbox. User maintained directory of GIS tools, websites and services.

uDig. "User-friendly desktop Internet GIS".

 

Global Map Data Archive  Based on the now discontinued Global Map system these archives contain an incomplete coverage of the earths surface.

Google Earth. "Google Earth lets you fly anywhere on Earth to view satellite imagery, maps, terrain, 3D buildings, from galaxies in outer space to the canyons of the ocean. You can explore rich geographical content, save your toured places, and share with others". [Sorry: it is not possible to download the required software onto the PC in the Map Room]. 

Google Maps UK. Search by place name, street, post code for online maps in GB and all other parts of the world. Use the 'My Maps' facility to make your own maps. Map Adventures with Google is an article by Kimberly Powell which may help to get you started making your own maps.

Historical U.S. County Boundary Maps. Boundaries from any historical year, overlaid on Google Maps. Quickly search using any present-day address or place. You can click any county on the map to see the specific history of the boundary changes, and navigate through different years to see the boundary changes over time.

Index Maps for AMS / U.S. Army Map Service and GSGS / Great Britain. War Office. General Staff. Geographical Section Map Series.

Inuit trails - Pan Inuit Trails. Atlas provides a synoptic view (although certainly incomplete) of Inuit mobility and occupancy of Arctic waters, coasts and lands, including its icescapes, as documented in written historical records (maps of trails and place names).

Landmap. Ran from 2001 to July 2014 and collected, modified and hosted a large amount of earth observation data for the majority of the UK, including imagery from ERS satellites, ENVISAT and ALOS, high-resolution Digital Elevation Models (DEMs) and Digital Terrain Models (DTMs) and aerial photography dating back to 1930. After removal of JISC funding in 2013, the Landmap service is no longer operational, with the data now held at the NEODC.

Land Registry. "The world's largest property database". Property information for England and Wales. This is a charged service and no maps can be seen online.

Linguistic Atlas of Late Mediaeval English (eLALME). A revised version of the printed atlas first published in 1986 (Atlas.5.98.151-154 ).

Magic. Multi-Agency Geographic Information for the Countryside of Great Britain. Definitive rural designation boundaries and information about rural land-based schemes.

Maps of India. A range of thematic mapping - mostly small scale - for viewing online and purchasing.

Mapping Medieval Townscapes: a digital atlas of the new towns of Edward I. The atlas uses mapping as a medium to explore how urban landscapes were shaped in the middle ages in England and Wales. Delivered by the ADS using innovative Web GIS technologies 'this project represents a significant new resource for all scholars and students of the medieval period, as well as those concerned with interpreting and managing historic built environments'.

National Atmospheric Emissions Inventory (NAEI). Maps of Great Britain showing the distribution of various pollutants in 2006 (published in 2008). Point source data can be downloaded.

National Digital Archive of Datasets (NDAD). Preserves and provides online access to archived digital datasets and documents from UK central government departments. Not all map data but may be of interest.

National Geographic. Has various mapping resources and mapping tools

Natural Earth. Public domain map dataset available at 1:10m, 1:50m, and 1:110 million scales. "Featuring tightly integrated vector and raster data, with Natural Earth you can make a variety of visually pleasing, well-crafted maps with cartography or GIS software".

North Sea Geographical Information System. Created by the Oil and Gas Directorate of the Department of Trade and Industry to provide a geophysical and licensing analysis of the United Kingdom's oil and gas exploration. Available from the National Archives, the dataset is open to the public without restriction.

Noise Mapping of England. Noise maps produced by Defra. Open data regarding the strategic noise mapping can be found on the gov.uk website

Office for National Statistics. Government site providing statistical data which can be represented in cartographic form.

OpenCycleMap. Cycling specific project based on the OpenStreetMap database. Includes shaded contour maps.

Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC). A non-profit, international, voluntary consensus standards organization that is leading the development of standards for geospatial and location based services.

OpenSeaMap.  A software project collecting freely usable nautical information and geospatial data to create a worldwide nautical chart.

OpenStreetMap. "A project aimed squarely at creating and providing free geographic data such as street maps to anyone who wants them". A collaborative, open source project to develop free geographic data like street maps using both manually entered data and automatic data collection and collation from portable GPS devices. Also see OpenStreetMap Out of Copyright Maps.

Ordnance Survey: The Getamap service was replaced in July 2015 by OS Maps (registration required ; plan routes and get informaion on elevations along the route ; additional facilities, such as 1:25k and 1:50k scale maps, are available to subscribers only). New in 2010, OS OpenData provides access to a selection of the most detailed mapping datasets available for Great Britain. The Ordnance Survey's web page on the history of the Ordnance Survey includes pdfs of two books:  A History of Ordnance Survey edited by W.A. Seymour and Ordnance Survey : Map Makers to Britian since 1791 by Tim Owen and Elaine Pilbeam.

Outline Maps:

Ancient World Mapping Centre. Plenty of free maps of the ancient world in various formats. Includes some outline maps.

Digital Vector Maps. Free outline maps of US states in editable PDF format. Other maps are available to purchase. All are royalty-free.

d-maps.com. Several thousand outline maps of countries and regions, in various versions (blank, with rivers, with towns, with administrative units etc) , each one in 6 graphic formats, vector and raster (GIF, PDF, CDR, SVG, AI, WMF).

National Geographic Black Line Maps.

Ordnance Survey. Free outline maps of GB, UK and Europe.

University of Alabama - Contemporary Maps. Outline maps for printing.

World Atlas. Includes outline maps and map tests.

Paleomap Project. Illustrates the plate tectonic development of the ocean basins and continents, as well as the changing distribution of land and sea during the past 1100 million years.

Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection. Large collection of online maps including CIA maps.

Planiglobe. Make your own digital vector map.

Planning Portal. The UK Government's online planning and building regulations resource where it is possible to create a site location plan.

Planning - J. R. James Archive. Collection of historic images and maps from the Department of Town and Regional Planning University of Sheffield and mostly from the collection of the late Professor J. R. James. Many from Sheffield but also includes images from other countries.

Quick Maps. Small GIF maps of countries of the world. No Longer updated.

Railway Maps of European Countries. No Longer updated.

Scottish Noise Mapping. Scottish Government maps produced in response to the European Parliament Environmental Noise Directive (END).

Soil Maps:

Soil maps - digital and paper - of England and Wales. See the LandIS, the 'Land Information System' a substantial environmental information system operated by Cranfield University, UK, designed to contain soil and soil-related information for England and Wales including spatial mapping of soils at a variety of scales. SoilScapes Viewer, is a free online interactive simplified soil map for England and Wales. The Soils Site Reporter is an online soil reporting tool for which there may be a charge (some reports are available free to authorised undergraduates). 

Macaulay Institute. Publishers of soil, land use and land capability maps, digital and paper, of Scotland. For map sales click here.

Harmonized World Soil Database. A 30 arc-second raster database with over 15000 different soil mapping units that combines existing regional and national updates of soil information worldwide (SOTER, ESD, Soil Map of China, WISE) with the information contained within the 1:5 000 000 scale FAO-UNESCO Soil Map of the World (FAO, 19711981).

Street Maps, Road Maps and Route Finding:

AA. Route planning in Great Britain, Ireland and continental Europe.

Bing Maps. Maps (including Ordnance Survey maps), aerial photographs, directions, latitude and longitude, etc.

CycleStreets. UK wide cycle journey planner and cycling related images.

Google Maps UK. Search by place name, street, post code for online maps in GB and all other parts of the world.

Green Flag. Includes a European route planner.

MapQuest. Search by address, postcode and latitute and longitude.

Maps.com. Route finding for USA plus online map store.

OpenCycleMap. Cycling specific project based on the OpenStreetMap database. Includes shaded contour maps.

OpenStreetMap. "A project aimed squarely at creating and providing free geographic data such as street maps to anyone who wants them". A collaborative, open source project to develop free geographic data like street maps using both manually entered data and automatic data collection and collation from portable GPS devices. Includes Ordnance Survey 1:50,000 and 1:25,000 Ordnance Survey maps at OpenStreetMap Out of Copyright Maps.

Searoutefinder. Measures port-to-port distances all over the world. To see the route details, choose the desired port of load- and discharge, and input other vessel specific data.

Streetmap. Street maps and some aerial photographs of Great Britain. Search by name, post code, telephone code, etc.

UK Grid Reference Finder. Search by location, post code, grid reference or latitude and longitude. Hover over pins on map, or right click on map, to find location, post code, grid reference or latitude and longitude of locations. See location as a map, aerial view of bird's eye view.

Where's the path. Compare OS maps with Google Earth images on a split screen. Plot a route and measure distances.

 

Subway Maps. Subway / Metro maps from around the world. Similar information also avaiable at urbanrail.net.

ThoughtCo. Fun information about maps, geography and more.

TopoView. Archive of USGS topographic maps and aerial photographs available for free download.

TopoZone. Scanned USGS maps providing an interactive topo map of the entire United States.

Tranquillity Maps of England. Commissioned by CPRE. Highly detailed national tranquillity map based on a new measurement approach (October 2006).

UK Data Service. UK’s only nationally funded research infrastructure for curating and providing access to social science data.

UK Post Code Finder. Royal Mail provides this online tool to find the postcode for any UK address; or an address from a post code.

United Nations Cartographic Section. Country maps and some thematic maps.

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees  (UNHCR).Browse for core reference data that is used in UNHCR, such as UNHCR presence, persons of concern locations, and administrative boundaries.

USA. US Geological Survey (USGS) produces topographic maps of the USA. See The National Map for access to high-quality, geospatial data and information from the USGS as well as Federal, State, and local partners. There is also useful information at DDS. Try the National Geological Map database to search for USGS geological maps and related data. TopoView is an archive of USGS topographic maps and aerial photographs available for free download. USGS locator site shows the sheet names for the 15 minute maps (shows the map names for both 1:50,000 scale and 1:62,500 scale when you select the 1:62,500 scale). TopoZone provides scanned USGS maps providing an interactive topo map of the entire United States. USGS EarthExplorer. Provides access to millions of land-related products, mainly of USA. USGS Global Visualization Viewer. Online search and order tool for selected satellite and aerial data.

USA. Nautical ChartsFree PDF modern and historical charts from Office of Coast Survey, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)

University of California - Berkeley.  Indexes to AMS and GSGS map series and also to other map series.

World Atlas. Small scale maps of countries and continents. Includes outline maps and map tests.

World Atlas - GIS Geography. Small scale maps of parts of the world.

WorldMap from Harvard

Worldmapper. A collection of world maps, where territories are re-sized on each map according to the subject of interest. 

World Ocean Database and World Ocean Atlas Series.

World Political and Physical Maps and Satellite Images from geology.com

World Wind. Provides geospatial visualization technology via extensible and modular components that can be incorporated into any application. (Not downlaodable on the Map Room PC) 

Opening Times

Map Room Opening Times

Monday to Thursday 9am to 12:45pm and 2pm to 5:10pm
Friday 9am to 12:45pm and 2pm to 4:50pm 

i.e., we are closed lunch time, in the evenings and on Saturdays. However, given sufficient notice, we may be able to transfer Map Department items to the Rare Books Reading Room for consultation during these closed periods. 

Remember: Pencils only in the Map Room and No food or drink!

Where to Find Us

Library Floorplan

The Map Room - the Map Department's Reading Room - is on the first floor of the Library at the far end of the North Gallery. At the top of the stairs from the Library's Entrance Hall, turn right and the Map Room is at the end of the corridor. 

We are very close to the Tea Room.

Contact us

Map Department 
Cambridge University Library 
West Road 
Cambridge 
CB3 9DR 

Email: maps@lib.cam.ac.uk

Telephone:
+44 (0) 1223 333041
+44 (0) 1223 333042
 
Our LibGuide may help with some enquiries