In 1884-85, a group of European dignitaries met in Berlin and delineated the boundaries of French, British, Belgian, Portuguese, Italian, Spanish, and German colonies on the continent of Africa. Lines drawn on the map became administrative reality, and over the next few decades European governments busied themselves with exploring, surveying, and conquering their new territories. One …
To those of us here at home and across the American diaspora, September 11th has come to be a solemn day of mourning and remembrance. However in the region of Catalonia, in the northeast of Spain, September 11th commemorates a different tragedy. Across the region, September 11th is known as La Diada, or the National …
When Ohio became a state in 1803, breaking off from the Northwest Territory, parts of the border remained ambiguous. Three decades later, this ambiguity led to a conflict between Ohioans and Michiganders which became known as the Toledo War. In the state’s enabling act, the northern boundary of Ohio was defined as “an east and …
Old maps are fantastic windows into history. If you want to know what the world was like 100, 200, or 500 years ago, you can look at a map published at that time and see where borders were located, what places were named, and what the land looked like (at least, to the degree of …
Letts’s bird’s eye view of the approaches to India by W.H. Payne was published in London during the early 1900s. Letts, Son & Co. sold stationary, maps and diaries, among them is this striking panoramic view that depicts Russian territory in the north marked with a red dotted line along the Amu Darya River. Mountain ranges, the …
The following post is by Kim Edwin, a library technician in the Geography and Map Division. Since coming to the Washington, D.C. area and joining the Geography and Map Division, I have enjoyed learning about the early history of our nation’s capital through maps and place names. In studying maps from the city’s early years …
The Orange Free State and the Transvaal (officially the South African Republic) were independent countries in southern Africa in the 19th century established largely by Dutch/Afrikaans-speaking settlers known as the Boers (Boer translates to “farmer” in Dutch). Occupying areas in what is today South Africa, the Boers of the 19th century were pastoral and religiously-oriented, …
While many of the over six million maps in the Geography and Map Division are of a serious nature, there are also those meant to amuse the viewer. There is one such atlas in the collection titled Geographical fun : being humourous outlines of various countries, with an introduction and descriptive lines. Published in 1868, …
The oldest set of federally placed monuments in the United States are strewn along busy streets, hidden in dense forests, lying unassumingly in residential front yards and church parking lots. Many are fortified by small iron fences, and one resides in the sea wall of a Potomac River lighthouse. Lining the current and former boundaries …
