Finding Old Maps Online

On Wednesday morning I shared a neat geography quiz that asks students to identify cities by looking at historic maps. In that blog post I suggested having students compare the historic maps shown in the quiz with other historic maps in order to come up with accurate responses on the quiz. Old Maps Online is a good site that your students can use to find historic maps. Old Maps Online is a map that you can browse and search to find historical maps to view online, to download, and to print. You can search the map by entering a location or you can just pan and zoom around the world to find historical maps. In the video embedded below I demonstrate how to use Old Maps Online.

Identifying Cities from Historic Maps - A Geography Game

Late last year The Guardian published a challenging geography quiz. The quiz presents historic maps of ten cities. You have to identify the city by examining the map. The quiz is multiple choice so you do have a little bit of hint as there are only three choices for each map. The quiz gives instant feedback when you submit your answers. The ten cities in the quiz are Berlin, Tokyo, Mexico City, Barcelona, Sydney, London, Kolkata, Rome, Lima, and Vienna.

Applications for Education
The Guardian's historic city map quiz could be a good activity for students to complete. Rather than just guessing at the answers I would have students look at the answer choices then find historic maps of each city in the answer choices before making a selection. Students could use the David Rumsey Historic Map layer in Google Earth to find historic maps of cities. Students could also use Old Maps Online to find historic maps of cities.

H/T to Maps Mania. 

Old Maps Online - Find Historical Maps for Your Area

Old Maps Online is a good use of Google Maps that I recently learned about through Google Maps Mania. Old Maps Online is designed to help you find historical maps of where you live or any other location that you enter into the search function. By default Old Maps Online searches for maps near your location. You can refine your search to a specific time using the timeline slider on Old Maps Online.

Old Maps Online doesn't host the maps that you find through their search box. Old Maps Online refers you to the host of the maps. One of the frequently used hosts is the David Rumsey Historical Map collection.

Applications for Education
There are other ways to find historical maps online, but Old Maps Online makes it very easy to do. The maps that you and your students find could be used as overlays in the Google Earth layers. You might also use the maps for a local history comparison activity by comparing your students' current vision of where they live with what it looked like in the past.