Explore the world of historic cartography! Discover old maps and learn about the fascinating history of cartography and its role in exploring the world.

The art of cartography is something that should be shared and helps people appreciate geography.

Maps convey geographic information about places and help us to better understand topography, environment, culture and more.

Cartography is the art and science of making maps is an old profession that has been practiced since ancient Babylonia times. Back them, most maps were created for navigation purposes and to help depict territorial regions.

Canada is a relative young country (when compared to others) and thus experienced many years of European exploration that resulted in the creation of many maps that tried to show part of the world that had not been mapped before.

Canadian Historic Cartography - 1855 Map of British North America

The “Historic Cartography” section of our site was created to explore the many great sources of vintage cartography in Canada. From detailed hand drawn maps by early explorers whom created and documented some of the earliest spatial representations of Canada to maps that focus on nature, the north, and our people.

We include everything from detailed hand drawn maps by early explorers whom created and documented some of the earliest spatial representations of Canada to various maps that focused more on nature, the north, culture, and our people. We also include great online sources where you can download old maps …

Some of the more popular Canadian Historic Maps that we promote include:

See below, for some of the latest additions to the website (or try using our site search tools).

If you know of some historic map related content or collections that you think that the Canadian geospatial community would benefit from knowing about then let us know and we will make sure to share it on our site and promote it our thousands of social followers (60,000+).