Research Guides: CITY 185: Urban Culture and Society (BMC): Digital Maps

Historical Maps & Geography

Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps
Sanborn maps convey detailed information about building types, materials, street widths. This digitized collection contains maps from the early 1900s-1920s (also maps of all of Pennsylvania).
Philadelphia Architects and Buildings
Contains links to photographs, drawings, and data about buildings in the Philadelphia area.
Greater Philadelphia GeoHistory
This site contains thousands of old maps, property atlases, city directories, industrial site surveys, and other items documenting the history and development of the city from the 1600s through today.
Historic American Building Survey
Digitized image database from the Library of Congress. The collections document achievements in architecture, engineering, and landscape design in the United States and its territories through a comprehensive range of building types, engineering technologies, and landscapes.
Philly History
Search for historical photos of Philadelphia locations by address or place name.
Mapping Inequality: Redlining in New Deal America
Mapping tool showing the history of "redlining" practices begun in the 1930s, which denied access to mortgages to Black Americans and other communities of color in the United States.
Temple Urban Archives
Established in 1967, Temple University’s Urban Archives document the social, economic, political, and physical development of the greater Philadelphia region throughout the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries. Resources housed in the Urban Archives document the development of an urban region through a wide variety of organization records

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David Rumsey Map Collection
Find 18th and 19th century historical maps at the city, country, and continent levels for North and South America, Europe, Asia, Africa, Oceania.

Old Maps Online
A very easy to use portal to digitized maps from many libraries around the world. Allows you to easily identify maps related to the region and time period you are studying.

American Memory
Provides information on, and access to, digitized versions of primary-source collections on American history and culture, including photographs, documents, sound recordings, and motion pictures.

Current Maps and Geography

National Atlas of the United States of America
Describes the "National Atlas of the United States of America," a project of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) in Reston, Virginia. Includes a FAQ section, atlas development news, selected maps, and a list of publishing partners.
PolicyMap
PolicyMap is an online data and mapping application that gives access to over 15,000 indicators related to demographics, housing, crime, mortgages, health, jobs and more. Data is available at all common geographies (address, block group, census tract, zip code, county, city, state, MSA) as well as unique geographies like school districts and political boundaries.
Social Explorer
Offers access to reports and interactive maps for the U.S. Census (1790-present), World Development Indicators (1960-2013), and Eurostat (European Union data), among others. A project of Queens College, sponsored by the New York Times and the National Science Foundation.