Library Guides: Landscape Architecture: Maps and Data

Maps for Architecture Research

City of New Orleans GIS
Public platform for exploring and downloading open data, discovering and building apps, and engaging to solve important local issues. Use this site to analyze and combine Open Datasets using maps, as well as develop new web and mobile applications.Contains many of the elements that comprise the built environment, from streets to building footprints to zoning and land use data.
City of New Orleans GIS: Featured GIS Applications
City of New Orleans GIS: Preservation
City of New Orleans GIS: Preservation Non-profit
City of New Orleans: Maps, Apps, and Dashboards
City of New Orleans Property Viewer
Collins C. Diboll Vieux Carré Digital Survey
Mapping construction projects happening in New Orleans right now (Curbed)
NOLA.GOV Search Results: Maps
Orleans Parish Parcel Maps
Search Orleans Parish property records and parcel maps by owner name, address, tax bill number, or by map. Developed by the Orleans Parish Assessors' Office.
New Orleans Real Estate Market Overview (Trulia)

Fire insurance maps are excellent for historical research associated with preservation efforts.

Louisiana Fire Insurance Maps Online
Fire Insurance Maps online (FIMo), is Historical Information Gatherers' research portal to find and view high-definition, color Fire Insurance Maps, Real Estate Atlases, Plat Books, and other historical maps for Louisiana showing building structures, building construction details, property ownership, property uses, and other useful information.
Digital Sanborn Maps, 1867-1970
Access large-scale maps of Louisiana towns and cities. Manipulate maps, magnify and zoom in on specific sections, and layer maps from different years.

Using Sanborn Maps
Quick guide to using the Sanborn Maps database, available through Tulane University Libraries.

Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps Collection (TUSC)
This collection includes fire insurance maps made by the Sanborn Map Company: 46 volumes of the maps are for New Orleans and cover 1876–1940s (updated through the 1960s). The two volumes for 1876 are the earliest Sanborns for New Orleans, and the only known copies. There are also 24 volumes for other cities in Louisiana and 14 volumes for cities in Mississippi.
Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps (1876 New Orleans)
The earliest known copies of fire insurance maps for the New Orleans area, produced in 1876 as the Louisiana Sanborn Fire Insurance Atlas.
Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps (Library of Congress)
Nearly 25,000 Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps, which depict the structure and use of buildings in U.S. cities and towns. Maps will be added monthly until 2020, for a total of approximately 500,000.
Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps: Orleans Parish (Library of Congress)
Sanborn Map & Publishing Co.
Sanborn Map Company

Braun New Orleans Fire Insurance Atlases
Three fire insurance atlases for the city of New Orleans, Louisiana. Coverage of the Fourth District (1874 and 1877) and the Third District (1877). Collection 123 of the Southeastern Architectural Archive.
Langermann and Celles Fire Insurance Atlases
This collection includes seven fire insurance atlases that cover the 1st through 6th districts of New Orleans, Louisiana.
Robinson New Orleans Fire Insurance Atlas
This collection includes one fire insurance atlas for the city of New Orleans, Louisiana, which covers the entire city at the time of 1883 and illustrates blocks with buildings of individual properties. Buildings are color coded to indicate which materials were used in their construction.
Robinson’s Atlas of the City of New Orleans, Louisiana (1883)
Digitized copy of the Robinson Atlas as held by the New Orleans Notarial Archive. An 1883 city map, arranged according to the city's seven municipal districts.

American Geographical Society Library Digital Map Collection
Showcases maps spanning the globe from the 15th to 21st centuries.
Digital Collections: Norman B. Leventhal Map & Education Center
The National Map (USGS)
A collaborative effort among the USGS and other Federal, State, and local partners to improve and deliver topographic information for the Nation. Includes orthoimagery (aerial photographs), elevation, geographic names, hydrography, boundaries, transportation, structures, and land cover.
EarthExplorer (USGS)
Provides users the ability to query, search, and order satellite images, aerial photographs, and cartographic products from several sources.
The New York Public Library Digital Collections
A living database with new materials added every day, featuring prints, photographs, maps, manuscripts, streaming video, and more.

Geospatial Historian: Open HGIS Lessons and Resources
A tutorial-based open access textbook for historical scholars and digital humanists designed to teach practical digital mapping and GIS skills.
NYPL Map Warper
A tool for digitally aligning ("rectifying") historical maps from the NYPL's collections to match today's precise maps.

Social Explorer
Social Explorer “contains over 18,000 maps, hundreds of profile reports, 40 billion data elements, 335,000 variables and 220 years of data”. It can be used to locate census tract boundary information from 1940 to the present.
PolicyMap
A data and mapping tool that enables government, commercial, non-profit and academic institutions to access data about communities and markets across the US.

New Orleans Area - Maps (The Data Center)
DataDriven (NOLA.gov)
City of New Orleans GIS
OpenStreetMap
Built by a community of mappers that contribute and maintain data about roads, trails, cafés, railway stations, and much more, all over the world.
Geographic Information Systems (Tulane Library Guide)
Louisiana Register of Historic Cemeteries
Includes identifying information on over 8,600 historic cemeteries across Louisiana. Some entries include photos.

Digitized Louisiana Maps, 1513-1900
The Louisiana Research Collection's renowned map collection extends from 1513 to the present. With more than 400 maps from before 1799, its holdings include state and regional topographic maps, maps of vegetation zones and natural resources, parish and highway maps, and plans of New Orleans tracing the city's development since its founding in 1718.
Physical Maps in Tulane Special Collections (TUSC)
TUSC's map holdings extend from 1513 to the present, with about 400 maps dating from before 1799. Among the collection's diverse holdings are early maps of North America and the vast territory of Louisiana.
New Orleans City Planning Commission Historical Resources
Includes historical zoning and land use maps, major street maps and plans, and Hurricane Katrina recovery plans.
Vieux Carré Virtual Library
Historical Maps of U.S. Cities: New Orleans The Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection online includes 18 maps of New Orleans, from 1728 to 1920.
Historical Topographic Maps (USGS)
U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) USGS National Geospatial Program is converting historical printed topographic quadrangles to an electronic format (GeoPDF).
TopoView (USGS)
Access historical topographic maps.
Library of Congress: Maps
Largest and most comprehensive cartographic collection in the world.