Sometimes reading history can get a bit stuffy. If you want to know how people in the past saw their world, maps give you the best view of how they really saw their world.

You can search around the internet for hours and find small pictures of maps.

The maps on our disk are big maps. Suitable for printing and framing (if you have big enough paper and printer). The smallest of our maps is 2519 x 3436 pixels. The largest is a map from 1688 showing what was to become the U.S. and Canada. It is 19642 x 12803 pixels. At 100 DPI, that can cover the side of a building!

There are maps from the 1500's through the 1700's showing what was the known world at the time. Parts of North and South America are included while other parts are left off. Maps from the 1800's showing Australia as "New Holland" and large swaths of South America as "Mostly Unknown." We at the Clarinet Institute of Los Angeles find great joy in looking at the old maps of North America not even showing anything for Los Angeles. Old city maps of London and Paris. A wealth of fun and information to spark the curiosity in anyone.

A great gift for anyone interested in maps or history. Enjoy hours of fun perusing these historic maps. You can have a fun time figuring out the dates that the maps were made by using this handy guide.

This archive is only available as a digital download.