A Journey Through Latin American Maps
from the Columbian Encounter to the Present

HISTORY OF CARTOGRAPHY

See the website for the History of Cartography Project for updates and indices of the most comprehensive secondary source on the subject. For online resources see the gateway page, History of Cartography website.

For an overview on mapping topics such as projection, coordinate systems, etc., see Peter H. Dana’s webpage. See also Latitude: Science of Sailing (P. Seed, Rice University).

Online resources and map collections, the most extensive collections include David Rumsey and US Library of Congress: Map Collections, 1550-present; part of the American Memory series of collections available online, as well as the John Carter Brown Library’s Archive of Early American Images, Yale University’s Digital Images Online (from their rare book & manuscript collection), manuscript and printed maps in Spain’s Biblioteca Digital Hispanica, and the Bibliothèque Nationale (France)’s online resources at Gallica.

For vocabularies & definitions, a good starting point is the Glossary of Cartographic Terms at the Perry-Castañeda Library (University of Texas).

BIBLIOGRAPHIES & LINKS

• Map History website, with many links, including to early maps of the Americas
• Newberry Library, A Concise Bibliography of the History of Cartography
• US Library of Congress, Luso-Hispanic world in maps
• Henry Davis Maps (lists of Ancient-Renaissance maps; links to other websites)
• British Library, Useful Links: Maps
• Razón Cartográfica, resources on history of Cartography & Colombia
• Calendar of Links to Cartography Exhibits

EXHIBITS RELATING TO CARTOGRAPHY & LATIN AMERICA

• US Library of Congress
  • The Portuguese Role in Exploring and Mapping the New World
  • Exploring the Early Amerias Exhibit
  • 1492:An Ongoing Voyage
  • The 1562 Map of America by Diego Gutérrez (John Hébert)
  • Kislak Collection of the Library of Congress, online exhibit
• Newberry Library, Herman Dunlop Smith Center for the History of Cartography
  • Exhibit: Mapping the French Empire in North America
  • Exhibit: The Aztecs and the Making of Colonial Mexico
• Dana Leibsohn and Barbara Mundy, _Vistas: Visual Culture in Spanish America, 1520-1820_
• University of Texas at Austin, Perry Castañeda Library
  • Historical Map Collection, Americas
  • Americas map collection
  • Thematic maps (including several on Climate in the Americas)
• University of Texas at Austin Benson Library,
  • Relaciones Geográficas Collection
  • Early Maps of Mexico, Central America & the Caribbean (city maps, 1600s-1800s)
• John Carter Brown Library (Brown University)
  • Portugal and Renaissance Europe
  • Champlain’s America: New France & New England
  • Remember Haiti
  • Map Talk
  • I found it in the Archives series; September 2008, Montevideo, Uruguay, 8th century fort and port city; April 2010, Karl Offen, “Mapping Land Politics on the Mosquito Shore.”
  •  Cartographic Conversation. A dozen essays examining maps in the JCB collections.
  • "I found it at the JCB" series; September 2008, Montevideo, Uruguay, 8th century fort and port city; April 2010, Karl Offen, “Mapping Land Politics on the Mosquito Shore.”
• Folger Institute
  • Mapping the Early Modern World (1998)
  • Texts of Imagination & Empire: REflections of participants in a 2000 NEH workshop on the 1612 map of Virginia by John Smith
• Osher Map Library, University of Southern Maine, Exhibitions
  • Columbus Letter (with a woodcut "map" of the Caribbean)
  • Charting Neptune’s Realm from Classical Mythology to Satellite Imagery
  • Envisioning the World: The First Printed Maps, 1492-1700
• British Library
  • Map Exhibitions
  • Lie of the Land: The Secret Life of Maps
  • London: A Life in Maps
• Bibliothèque Nationale (France)
  • France in America
• Biblioteca Nacional (Portugal)
  • Cartography of Brazil, 1700-1822
• James Ford Bell Library, Minnesota
  • Portolan Charts
• Biblioteca Luis Ángel Arango (Colombia)
• Cartografía Histórica (Historic Cartography of Colombia, Latin America, and more)
• Archivo General de Indias
  • Exposiciones Virtuales, includes “Paisajes urbanos de América y Filipinas”
• Field Museum (Chicago)
  • Maps: Finding our Place in the World (2008 exhibit)
  • Select maps from the exhibit in J. Akerman, ed., Maps: Finding Our Place in the World (2007)
• New York Public Library
  • Christopher Columbus & Early European Exploration
  • Mapping New York’s Shoreline: 1609-2009
  • Maps from the Lawrence H. Slaughter Collection
  • Heading West: Mapping the Territory
• Canada & French National Archives,
  • Nouvelle France: Horizons Nouveaux
• Common-Place (an online Journal)
  • Early Cities of the Americas
  • Trevor Burnard, “A Passion for Places: The Geographic Turn in American History,” July 2008
• US National Humanities Center, American Beginnings
  

CARTOGRAPHY COLLECTIONS & WEBSITES

World Digital Library has a growing number of images, including maps, of and from Latin America. Old Maps Online has a growing collection of old maps georeferenced (mapped onto) contemporary maps. Biblioteca Digital del Patrimonio Iberoamericano is a similar collection, focusing on Iberoamerica. Although the Internet Archive does not have a sophisticated search interface, it does have a growing number of materials for the persistent researcher.

europe

• Biblioteca Nacional, Spain, Biblioteca Digital Hispanica and PARES database, which includes a search engine focused on digitized maps
• Museo Naval, Spain
• Bibliothèque Nationale (France), Gallica.
• British Library, Scanned Map Collections
• Bibliothèque Nationale (France), La France en Amérique (France in America)
• Biblioteca Nazonale Centrale de Firenze (Florence, IT) Digitized Maps in the Carte geografiche Palatino collection
• Portugal, Military Cartography of Portugal, XVIII-XX
• Bibliothèque Roayle Albert 1er, Belgian Royal Library, Cartes des Amériques

latin america

• Archivo General de la Nación (Mexico),Mapas, Planos e Ilustraciones
• Biblioteca Luis Angel Arango, Cartografía histórica (Historic Cartography) and Libros sobre cartografía de Colombia (Books on Colombian Cartographic History)
• Biblioteca Nacional de Chile, Sala Virtual de Cartografía Chilena
• Biblioteca Nacional Digital (Brazil), online database, can search for maps
• Roberto Luis Jaramillo, Rasguños, pegotes y mapas en Antioquía: siglos XVIII y XIX
• Instituto de Geografía (Mexico), Atlas nacional de México
• Juan Gunter Doering, Planos de Lima, 1613-1983
• Archivo Visual de Santiago de Chile (maps, plans, and other visual sources)
• Chile’s National Library has a virtual “Sala Medina” Documentary Archive with multiple colonial maps of Chile as well as texts important to the country’s history
• Cervantes Virtual, an online library for documents relation to Spain and Spanish America, has many early chronicles, some with maps

north america

• David Rumsey Map Collection and Luna Commons
• US Library of Congress: Map Collections (old format), Map Collections (new format) 1550-present; part of the American Memory series of collections
• John Carter Brown Library’s Archive of Early American Images,
• Bibliotheque Nationale (Canada) Quebec Digital Collections: maps and plans (Mostly New France/Quebec; also America: 1500-1800)
• Yale Library, Digital Images Online Collection (try a search under "map")
• Yale Map Collection
• University of Minnesota David Ford Bell Library maps
• American Geographical Society Library Digital Map Collection at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
• University of Alabama online maps:
  • Historical Maps collection homepage
  • World before 1800
  • Western Hemisphere
  • South America to 1750
• Big Think/Strange Maps, a website with analysis of unusual maps
• Big Map Blog
• Alberto Ríoos, Maps & Magical Realism

ethnocartography & GIS

• Center for the Support of Native Lands
• Aboriginal Mapping Network, Canada
• Tierra y habitat indígena Yukpa, Sector Toromo-Tütari, Sierra de Perijá

JOURNALS

• Map History List of Journals
• Imago Mundi
• Journal of Historical Geography
• The Portolan, Journal of the Washington Map Society
• Mapline (1976-). The newsletter of the Newberry Library Hermon Dunlap Smith Center for the History of Cartography
• Mercator’s World: the magazine of maps, atlases, globes, and charts
• Revista cartográfica
• Journal of Latin American Geography (Tucson, AZ, 2002–) (formerly the annual Conference of Latin Americanist Geographers Conference proceedings)
• Journal of the Hakluyt Society (emphasis on exploration & discovery)
• Terrae Incognitae: Journal for the History of Discoveries
• Investigaciones Geográficas, journal of the Instituto Geográfico of the UNAM
• Mapping Interactivo: Revista Internacional de Ciencias de la Tierra
• Scripta Nova (1997-) an online journal of geography and social sciences with substantial contributions in Latin American themes and topics

SOME MAPS FROM THE VOLUME AVAILABLE ONLINE

Waldseemuller World Map (Universalis Cosmographia) (1507); (Entire map); see also website on MartinWaldseemuller

Tenochtitlán 1524 (Yale, Beinecke)

• Ramusio 1565 version (Yale, Beinecke)Ramusio, Giovanni Battista, 1485-1557.
  Terzo volume delle nauigationi et viaggi / raccolto gia da m. Gio. Battista Ramusio
  In Venetia : nella stamperia de Giunti., lanno 1565.
• As part of Aztecs & Colonial Mexico Exhibit at the Newberry,

Relaciones Geográficas, Cholula & Text of the Questionnaire (Benson Library)

Oztoticpac Land Map and discussion (Library of Congress); Map only

• Related: Aztec Land Map, 1565, Codex Reese (Yale Beienecke) (one of four pieces)

Pedro Cieza de León, Perú (Yale, Beinecke) from Cieza de Leon, Pedro de, 1518-1554. La prima parte dell historie del Perv. Dove si tratta lordine delle prouincie, delle citta nuoue in quel paese edificate, i riti, & costumi de gli Indiani, con molte cose notabili, et degne di consideratione...In Venetia, Appresso Giordano Ziletti, al segno della Stella. MDLX.

Guaman Poma de Ayala Website, Mapa Mundi & Land Dispute Map (Royal Library, Denmark)

Herman Moll, A Map of the West Indies..., 1715

• A Map of the West Indies (Yale, Beinecke) From Moll, Herman, d. 1732. Atlas minor ... London : Printed for Thomas Bowles, next to the Chapter-house in St. Paul’s Church-yard, and John Bowles, at the Black Horse in Cornhill ..., [1732]

Alexander von Humboldt, Geographie des plantes equinoxiales. / Tableau physique des Andes et Pays voisins... (Yale, Beinecke), from Humboldt, Alexander von, 1769-1859. Essai sur la geographie des plantes, accompagne dun tableau physique des regions equinoxiales, fonde sur des mesures executees, depuis le dixieme degre de latitude boreale jusquau dixieme degre de latitude australe, pendant les annees 1799, 1800, 1801, 1802 et 1803, Paris : F. Schoell, 1807. See also the Humboldt Digital Library, interactive map of Chimborazo.

Lionel Lisborne, Topographical map a portion of the Isthmus of Darien... (1854)

Agustin Codazzi, Provincia de Velez (1855)

Antonio García Cubas, Carta General de la República Mexicana (1858) (David Rumsey Collection). The entire atlas is available for consultation.

Text of Lucio Costa Report of the Pilot Plan for Brasilia and some drafts. For information on Costa, see also the webpage of the Casa Lucio Costa (Brazil)

Mexico City Subway Maps

Video: Bjorn Sletto, Inna Kowantok, and article Mapping the Gran Sabana (Americas 2005)

some related maps & resources

Universalis Cosmographia (1545) from Honter, Johannes, 1498-1549. Rudimenta cosmographica Impressvm in inclyta Transylvaniae Corona 1542.

An Hydrographical Draught of Mexico as it Lies in its Lakes (1725). From Herrera y Tordesillas, Antonio de, d. 1625. The general history of the vast continent and islands of America ... London, Printed for J. Batley, 1725-26.

Richard Ligon, Map of Barbados (17c) (Yale, Beinecke) from Ligon, Richard, A true and exact history... London 1657

Universitty of Arizona Webpage on Antonio de Herrera and the Historia General

Antonio Herrera, Descripción de la audience de Panamá (Yale, Beinecke); Descripción de l’audience del Nuevo Reino From Herrera y Tordesillas, Antonio de, d. 1625.
Historia general de los hechos de los castellanos en las islas i tierra firme del mar oceano.... / En Madrid : En la imprenta real de Nicolas Rodriguez [sic] Franco, Año de 1730.

Paraguay, O Prov. de Rio de la Plata cum adiacentibus Provinviis quas vocant Tucuman, et Sta. Cruz de la Sierra (1640) (Yale, Beinecke) in Laet, Joannes de, 1593-1649. Lhistoire dv Nouveau monde on Description des Indes Occidentales, contenant dix-huit liures...enrichi de nouuelles tables geographiques & figures des animaux, plantes & fruicts A Leyde : Chez B. & A. Elseuiers, 1640.

Texts of Jesuit Relations (Canadian Archives)

Robert Schomburgk Letter of 23 December 1844 to British Parliament on the preparation and submission of his map of Guyana, and Full list of his reports

Plano topográfico de la ciudad de Santiago de Chile (1856) and (1871); Sala Virtual de Cartografía Chilena, Cartografía Urbana (mostly 18-early 20 c.)

Comisión de Límites, Linea Divisoria entre México y Estados Unidos, 1901 (book of 19 maps)

Mapa de los ferrocariles en explotación, República de Argentina, Ministerio de Obras Públicas, Dirección general de ferrocarriles, Año de 1924

Outline of the automobile roads in Mexico drawn specially for Terry’s Guide to Mexico. (Mexico) in Terry, T. Philip (Thomas Philip), 1864-1945. Terry’s guide to Mexico : the new standard guidebook to the Mexican Republic : with chapters on the railways, airways, automobile roads and the ocean routes to Mexico Boston ; New York : Houghton Mifflin Company, 1935.

Chilean Arpilleras Website

Bjorn Sletto, Inna Kowantok, video on mapping the Pemon homeland (Venezuela)

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHY INSTITUTES OF LATIN AMERICA

• Instituto Panamericano de Geografía e Historia


• Instituto Geográfico Militar, Argentina, including school maps
• Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística, Brazil
• Serviço Geológico do Brasil (CPRM) / Geological Survey of Brazil
• Instituto Geográfico Militar, Chile
• Instituto Geografico "Agustin Codazzi", Colombia
• Instituto Geográfico - Ministerio de Obras Públicas y Transportes, Costa Rica
• Instituto Geográfico Militar, Ecuador
• Centro Nacional de Registros, El Salvador
• Instituto Geográfico Nacional, Guatemala
• Proyecto Centroamericano de Información Geográfica (PROCIG), Central America
• Instituto Nacional de Estadística, Geografía e Informática, Mexico
• Instituto de Geografía, UNAM, Mexico
• Instituto Nicaragüense de Estudios Territoriales (INETER) Nicaragua
• Instituto Geográfico Nacional Tommy Guardia (IGNTG), Panama
• Instituto Geográfico Nacional,Peru
• Instituto Nacional de Estadística e Informatica, Peru
• Instituto Geofísico del Perú, Peru
• Servicio Geográfico Militar, Uruguay


• Instituto Geográfico do Exército (Army Geographic Institute) (Portugal)
• Instituto Hidrográfico de la Marina (Spain)
• US Geological Survey, with US National Atlas and Educational Resources