"The U.S. Geological Survey has just released more than 161,000 digitally scanned historical maps spanning in excess of 130 years and covering the lower 48 states. This Historical Topographic Map Collection provides a comprehensive repository of the landscape of our Nation..."
posted by Miko on Apr 20, 2012 - 19 comments

Evolution of the Map of Africa [more inside]
posted by zarq on Jul 7, 2011 - 15 comments

MAP OF THE SQUARE AND STATIONARY EARTH. Send 25 Cents to the Author, Prof. Orlando Ferguson, for a book explaining this Square and Stationary Earth. It Knocks the Globe Theory Clean Out. It will Teach You How to Foretell Eclipses. It is Worth Its Weight in Gold.
posted by Faint of Butt on Jun 27, 2011 - 48 comments

How Manhattan’s Grid Grew. Interactive New York Times map comparing 1811 New York with present day, plus other cool historical stuff. Huzzah, as the kids say.
posted by flyingsquirrel on Mar 21, 2011 - 27 comments

An interactive overview of Metal history, in map form. Flash.
posted by zamboni on Dec 3, 2010 - 43 comments

Lviv Interactive, a project of the Center for Urban History of East Central Europe, is mapping the history, architecture, and human landscape of the City of Lions - including locations no longer there. [more inside]
posted by mdonley on Aug 29, 2010 - 10 comments

Digital Encyclopaedia of the Hellenic World is a three volume, drill down* cornucopia of information (some sections not published yet - but often with hover over info) for you to get lost in. [more inside]
posted by unliteral on Jul 22, 2010 - 12 comments

Peacay of BibliOdyessey highlights some stunning examples of Victorian Infographics from the Rumsey Map Collection(previously). (Direct Flickr link)
posted by The Whelk on Dec 22, 2009 - 21 comments

Preserved in the cave excavations of Mogao and listing 1,339 stars the Dunhuang Star Chart is the oldest graphical star atlas known to exist. Dated to between 649 and 684 AD, it features two sections. The first consists of 26 diagrams of asterisms (including a recognizable Big Dipper and Orion) and the second contains 12 star maps each showing a 30 degree east-west section of sky in cylindrical projection plus an azimuthal projection circumpolar map. Star positions are accurate to within 1.5 degrees and it includes some stars in the southern sky. [more inside]
posted by Mitheral on Jun 28, 2009 - 10 comments

The Atlas of Early Printing. A visualization of fifteenth-century printing presses in Europe. Click around, look at the book-learnin' blossom!
posted by Greg Nog on Sep 19, 2008 - 15 comments

National Geographic Map of the Day. Previously featuring maps that run the gamut from automotive discovery and exploration; through literary, witchhunts and imaginary; to historical and Olympic.
posted by Mitheral on Aug 15, 2008 - 9 comments

Satirical maps of Europe from 1914-15.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane on Aug 6, 2008 - 25 comments

Canada at scale: Exploration, colonization and development. And a pop-up menu. Go, eh!
posted by St Urbain's Horseman on Sep 25, 2007 - 30 comments

Trulia Hindsight merges real estate data showing the year properties were built with animated maps (US Only). Search for your town by name; here's mine.
posted by oneirodynia on May 29, 2007 - 10 comments

The Hermon Dunlap Smith Center for the History of Cartography Maps, mappers, and the history of mapping, with slide shows, online exhibitions (e.g. The French Empire in North America, popular cartography), and journal articles. Part of the Newberry Library, Chicago.
posted by carter on Apr 21, 2006 - 5 comments

The National Maritime Museum, Greenwich has some excellent online collections related to maritime history and technology, including telescopes, marine chronometers, sundials, and a whole lot more. Some stuff I've been looking at: John Harrison's chronometers (described in Dava Sobel's book Longitude), polyhedral sundials, and pocket globes.
posted by carter on Mar 15, 2006 - 4 comments

Piri Reis Map I am a sucker for those books that hypothesize that Earth was visited by extra-terrestrials in the distant pass. One artifact that is brought up in nearly all of them is The Piri Reis Map, a document that seems to be a map includes parts of the world (such as Antarctica's ice-covered mountains) that were thought to be very recent discoveries. But, are they a hoax?
posted by synecdoche on Apr 21, 2004 - 14 comments