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Library of Congress Map Collections from 1500's

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the simply-cool dept.

e03179 writes "A friend of mine stumbled across this site from the US Library of Congress. The website allows users to view maps that go all the way back to the 1500's (like this one of America in 1562). The maps have been converted to digital form (SID format - viewer available here) but are viewable in .GIF form in your browser. I was able to look up my hometown during 1871 and see the church in which I'm getting married. Who thought the LOC could be so 31337?"

7 of 251 comments (clear)

  1. Who thought the LOC could be so 31337? by the+eric+conspiracy · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Surely you jest. LIbraries are the oldest and ultimate repository of geek-ness. WHat could be more 31337.

    Interestingly, the world's first library just reopened a couple of days ago.

    Or you could visit this extraordinary place.

  2. I'll tell you... by Qwerpafw · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Who thought the LOC could be so 31337?
    Neal Stephenson?

    Think back to SnowCrash, that piece of geek required reading...

    (for the uninitiated, the Protagonist of SnowCrash is a uber-hacker of sorts who freelances doing data mining for the library of congress. He also delivers pizza for the Mafia, or did until he crashed his car.)
  3. Interesting comparison by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Size of Slashdot's logo (title.gif): 3473 bytes
    Size of Slashdot's logo as a PNG: 2558 bytes
    Savings of 915 bytes

    That's a savings of nearly a gig per million downloads. Imagine the savings when you do all the other graphics on the site, too.

  4. Another interesting collection of old maps... by GeoMapper · · Score: 4, Interesting
    in modern formats (i.e., not paper) is at http://www.davidrumsey.com/

    I love old maps on weekends; by day, I love modern spatial datasets at the large earth-science agency at which I work (OK, it's a part of the Dept. of Injustice as referenced in a recent /. article on the 100% M$ solution. My team is about 50% Mac, 40% Win, 10% *nix - but that's OT).

    Maps can be considered a superset of the relational/OO database; x, y, z and t have special properties (try indexing on x and y). If you'd like to learn more of this facinating topic, do the usual searches but be sure to include GIS (geographic information system, not guessing is simpler, as some have suggested).

    Cheers from a first-poster. /. is great!

  5. submissions? by WhiteChocolate42 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I have a few maps of my hometown that predate the oldest LOC maps of the area (mine are from early 1800s). Does anyone know of a method to submit maps for archival? (I don't really want to give them away, but I would like to see them digitally archived)

  6. how did they know ... by Raiford · · Score: 5, Interesting
    I guess a cartographer is a cartographer regardless of what era you live in and the explorers also had the spirit of scientists as well. It amazes me that the coastlines of some regions such as Cuba have all the little nooks and crannies included. It amazes me how this was done without the aid of aerial observation. It may not be entirely accurate, but it was a grand attempt.

    --
    "player 4 hit player 1 with 0 stroms"
  7. Re:SVG? by delta407 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The maps are digitized from their original, hard-copy form. That produces a raster image, and it would be entirely useless to attempt to make an inaccurate vector represenetation of it.