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A Unique View of the Georgian Military Road
Few journeys offer the prospect of so pleasant a destination or more luxurious accommodations than the Stairway to Heaven. Those of us not lucky enough to secure a ticket on that ride will have to...
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Manchoukuo: Come for the Prosperity, Stay for the Harmony
This map of Manchuria was prepared by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation sometime in the 1930s as part of an atlas depicting the extent of Japanese pre-war colonization. It emphasizes...
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The Unique Seafaring Charts of the Marshall Islands
The Geography and Map Division holds thousands of vintage and antique nautical charts. Among the most compelling navigational charts in our holdings are the traditional stick charts of the Marshall...
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Al-Idrisi’s Masterpiece of Medieval Geography
German archeologist and historian Konrad Miller’s 1928 recreation of Muhammad ibn Muhammad al-Idrisi’s (also al-Sharif al-Idrisi; circa 1100–66) Tabula Rogeriana, titled Weltkarte des Idrisi vom Jahr,...
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Winds of (Ex)Change in the Indian Ocean
Take a look at this monsoon chart, paying special attention to the western Indian Ocean between the east coast of Africa and the west coast of India, and you might notice a pattern: Monsoon & trade...
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The Road to Kyoto
Edo (present day Tokyo) served as the seat of the Tokugawa Shogunate from 1603 to 1867. During the Tokugawa period, the Tokaido Highroad was the most important route in Japan. The Tokaido road...
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The Unmaking of an Island
The dramatic eruption of Krakatoa (or Krakatau in Indonesian) in 1883 was, as our sister blog Headlines and Heroes describes it, “one of the first global catastrophes.” By its very destruction, this...
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Who drew the Map with Ship?
Featured below is a map known as the “Map with Ship.” The map was donated to the Library of Congress in 1943 by a retired merchant and author named Marcian F. Rossi. Marcian Rossi was born in Italy in...
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Southern Lands, Explorers, and Bears – Oh My!
The story of the naming of America has been told before – not surprisingly considering the object central to the story, Martin Waldseemüller’s 1507 world map, is one of the most important treasures in...
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From the Mountains to the Mekong
In 2023, the Geography and Map Division (G&M) acquired a map which, even among the nearly 6 million cartographic items in our collection, is unique. Hand-drawn in blue and red ink onto a piece of...
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Trader Flows: Early 18th Century East Indies Trade
Driven by more direct access to the lucrative Eastern spice trade, Europeans sought to circumvent its flow through the Middle East via a direct maritime route to Asia starting with the Portuguese...
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Fabricating the World: Printing with Wood
Stunning, dramatic, seven feet wide and historically important, the Waldseemüller world map of 1507 will likely be familiar to many readers of this blog. You may have heard that it’s the earliest use...
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