Library Guides: Environmental Studies Library Guide: Maps & Charts

Maps, Aerial Images, Remote Sensing

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.

Digital Sanborn Maps, 1867-1970 This link opens in a new window
Access large-scale maps of Louisiana towns and cities. Manipulate maps, magnify and zoom in on specific sections, and layer maps from different years.

Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center | Imagery and Data | USGS
Historic Aerial Photographs
Provides free online access to historic and current aerial photographs. You can view aerial photography from the USGS taken from the 1930s through today.
Land area change in coastal Louisiana from 1932 to 2010: U.S. Geological Survey Scientific Investigations Map 3164 June 2010
Landsat Data
The Landsat Program is a series of Earth-observing satellite missions jointly managed by NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey.
Library of Congress: Map Collections
Not all of the LC's holdings are digitized, but this is an extensive body of Map Collection Highlights.
Microsoft Terra Server
Resulting from cooperative research by the USGS and Microsoft Corporation, the TerraServer provides free online access to USGS digital aerial photographs, known as digital orthophoto quadrangles, and to digital topographic maps.
NASA oil spill images
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Aerial Photographs
The New Orleans District Corps of Engineers maintains an extensive aerial photography collection in contact print and film negative format, as well as scanned digital photo files.
U.S. Census Bureau Maps
Links to public domain maps and cartographic images.
U.S. Serial Set Maps
The U.S. Serial Set is a collection of U.S. Government publications on a wide range of subjects (1789-1969). Currently, the Serial Set includes House and Senate documents and reports, Senate executive reports and Senate treaty documents. Serial Set Maps are available from the Advanced Search screen.
Wetlands Mapper - National Wetlands Inventory -US Fish & Wildlife

Map Collections online

Try these resources to find historical maps.

American Geographical Society Library Digital Map Collection
Showcases maps spanning the globe from the 15th to 21st centuries.
David Rumsey Map Collection
Digitization of the collection began in 1996 and there are now over 38,000 items online. The collection focuses on rare 18th and 19th century maps of North and South America, although it also has maps of the World, Asia, Africa, Europe, and Oceania.
Historical Topographic Maps: USGS
The goal of the Historical Topographic Map Collection is to scan all scales and all editions of the more than 200,000 topographic maps published by the USGS since the inception of the topographic mapping program in 1884.
Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection
A rich collection of political, physical, and thematic maps, both historical and contemporary. Many are available online.

Maps in Books

Historical maps can be difficult to find, and may only exist in archival collections with no digital online access. In these cases, it is often helpful to search for maps that are published in secondary sources, especially books written by historians. When searching the library catalog, take note of the Format information, which will tell you if there are any maps or illustrations (abbreviated "ill.") included.