Harvard Map Collection

Cartographic Research Assistant, JR, shows the 1939 stamp of the last time a student checked out (!) this 1633 Mercator atlas to University Librarian, Martha Whitehead, and Houghton Librarian for Scholarly and Public Programs, Peter Accado at last night's Renaissance Treasures exhibit opening. https://library.harvard.edu/exhibits/renaissance-treasures-harvard-map-collection

We finished our Hondius 1630 world map puzzle just in time for the new semester, but, gah: one piece missing!

We think we have just acquired our longest map: a 1962 river guide of the Colorado passing fully through the Grand Canyon, ca. 45'. Mapmaker, Les "Buckethead" Jones.

Are you going to a shopping mall this Black Friday? Instead, why not make a map of all the malls in your vicinity? The Harvard Map Collection’s map making tutorials include step-by-step instructions for how to download geographic data for commonly tagged locations, such as malls and shops. Head over to our website and give yourself the gift of

So proud to have a map from our collection displayed in Prof. Soto Laveaga's wonderful exhibit, Measuring Difference https://chsi.harvard.edu/measuring-difference If you haven't been yet, make time to visit Harvard's Collection of Historic Scientific Instruments!

Laying out all our Rhine panoramas as we make final choices for the upcoming Rivers and Roads exhibit

As our cartographic peregrinations change course, we bid a fond adiós/adeus to the southern Americas; here in a 1562 map by Paulo di Forlani, with an almost rectangular presentation and an appended Tierra del Fuego, impressively vast and still indistinct.

In this detail of a 1630 Mercator/Hondius strike, a Patagonian colossus strides across the unknown region (at least to the Spanish) where Chile and Argentina now meet; a testament to Magellan and his crew's conviction that the Tehuelche people were giants.

While two right whales (?) frolic offshore, the great Andean mountain range is bathed in the light of a setting sun as shadows cloak the eastern slopes; in this strikingly elegant 1630 presentation of , by the estimable shop of Willem Janszoon Blaeu.

returns us far north of the equator, to espy a fabled sea-unicorn breaking the waters near the fabled Northwest Passage; where the equally fabled region of gold, Quivira, is located a bit too far west by de Jode on this 1593 map.

Lingering over the headwaters of the to further consider the display of mountains; this 1780 missionary map by Petrus Parcar has developed pictorially into tightly bunched soft serve ice cream swirls, providing a greater sense of mountainous heft.

A 1719 map of by de Fer, with the majestic looking more like molehills than mountains; along with a fine title cartouche, where, at the top, a pair of hard-working llamas ignore two miners descending a shaft via a rope/pulley/crank system.