Capital
District Atlas Sample Maps
This site showcases the Atlas of the Capital District,
prepared by the Captial District Regional Planning Commission. They
have put on-line a series of maps including Albany, Rensselaer,
Saratoga and Schenectady Counties. Maps show geology, population and
and planning information. You can load two different sizes of files to
view a map in more detail; the smaller one, which I have used, is
reasonably fast. Also included is a satellite image of the area which
is pretty cool.
The
David Rumsey Collection
This site "focuses on 18th and 19th century North and South American
cartographic materials. The collection includes atlases, globes, school
geographies, maritime charts, and a variety of separate maps including
pocket, wall, children’s and manuscript maps". There are over
4000 historic maps, including some 90 for New York State by itself. You
are required to load a browser. Then there is a search engine to allow
you to search by country, state, or keyword. The result is a series of
thumbnail maps meeting the search criteria from which you may choose
one to examine. The navigation tools may be a little intimidating to
the novice but there is a zoom function and a navigator or thumbnail
map to explore the details of each map. At each step, the new page
loads rather slowly but the for its content, the site map junkie
heaven.
Map
Collections: 1500 to 1999
The home page of The Geography and Map Division of the Library of
Congress says that it "holds more than 4.5 million items, of which Map
Collections represents only a small fraction, those that have been
converted to digital form. The focus of Map Collections is Americana
and Cartographic Treasures of the Library of Congress. These images
were created from maps and atlases and, in general, are restricted to
items that are not covered by copyright protection."
The collection is divided into several sections, such as 'Discovery
& Exploration' and 'Battles & Campaigns'. This
includes, as well as historic maps, bird's-eye city views, a personal
favorite. Although numerous clicks are needed to navigate to a
particular map, pages load reasonably quickly. There is a search
function that works with keywords or locations. Once a desired image
has been chosen, the user will be able to explore the details of a
particular image and easily jump from one part of the map to another
using a combination of a 'navigator map' and a zoom in/zoom out
function.
SUNY
Stonybrook Map Pathfinder.
This collection of links to digital images of maps of New York State
includes maps pre-dating 1800 and panoramic maps.