The following post is by Ryan Moore, a cartographic specialist in the Geography and Map Division. The Orange Free State and the Transvaal (officially the South African Republic) were independent countries in southern Africa in the 19th century established by Dutch-speaking settlers known as the Boers (Boer translates to “farmer” in Dutch). Occupying areas in […]
This is part of a series of posts from Ed Redmond, Cartographic Specialist in the Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division, documenting the cartographic history of maps related to the American Civil War, 1861-1865. The posts will appear on a regular basis. By late May 1862, the Union’s Army of the Potomac, led by […]
We are excited to announce the launch of two new Library of Congress Story Maps! At the beginning of May, the Library of Congress launched Story Maps, interactive and immersive web applications that tell the incredible stories of the Library’s collections. Created within a Geographic Information Systems (GIS)-based software platform created by Esri, Story Maps […]
Located in a shifting sea of ice, the North Pole sits at the center of the Arctic Ocean, the literal top of the world. The shifting of the ice makes it impossible to establish a permanent base at the pole, though drifting stations have been created through the decades that are manned for several weeks […]
The following post is by Ryan Moore, a cartographic specialist in the Geography and Map Division. Cartographic depictions of Seoul, the present-day capital of South Korea, during the time of the Japanese occupation of Korea are not often seen and the surviving artifacts a bit rare. The period of Japanese influence and control over Korea […]
This is part of a series of posts from Ed Redmond, Cartographic Specialist in the Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division, documenting the cartographic history of maps related to the American Civil War, 1861-1865. The posts will appear on a regular basis. One of the grand Union strategies of the Civil War came to […]
The Library of Congress staff is excited to launch Story Maps, interactive and immersive web applications that tell the incredible stories of the Library’s collections! Story Maps, created within a Geographic Information Systems (GIS)-based software platform created by Esri, combine text, images, multimedia, and interactive maps to create engaging online narrative experiences. Under a program […]
The following post is by Mike Klein, a reference specialist in the Geography and Map Division. Called the “father of temperature mapping,” the renowned German naturalist and climatologist, Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859) devised the concept of the isotherm, which he described in 1816 as a “curve drawn through points on a globe which receive an […]
The following post is by Ryan Moore, a cartographic specialist in the Geography and Map Division. The former capital of Pakistan, Karachi is the most populous city in the country and the third most populous in the world. Before it was Karachi, the place was called Kolachi, a small village on the Arabian Sea. Kolachi […]
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, […]