If you love maps and American history, this is for you. The Library of Congress (LOC) joined forces with the Digital Public Library of America to bring rare and historic maps online for everyone to enjoy.
“The Library of Congress’s extraordinary resources will be exponentially more available to everyone in the United States through DPLA. This partnership will benefit everyone, from curious thinkers to scholars,” Amy Ryan, President of the DPLA’s Board of Directors, says in a statement. The Library of Congress expects to add a significant portion of its digital items to the original trio of collections over time, covering other collections such as photos, maps, and sheet music.
Through LOC's Digital Collections, you'll find thousands of items from three major LOC maps collections—the Revolutionary War, Civil War, and panoramic maps collections. Browse for maps by state or region.
The Digital Public Library of America is a portal—effectively, a searchable catalog—that aggregates existing digitized content from major sources such as libraries, archives, museums, and cultural institutions. It provides users with links back to the original content-provider site where the material can be viewed, read, or, in some cases, downloaded.
Maps and other large images are presented as GIF or JPEG files. These files require no special viewers unless you choose to download and view maps offline.
For off-line viewing, you can download a possible four formats: