Historic news

Our May Map of the Month is this 1930s “Map of the World with Flags of the Leading Nations”. It shows the various complicated international borders of the interwar period as well as illustrations of the flags of the world’s leading nations and a plethora of related information on its reverse side.  ...

Our April Map of the Month is titled “Carte de la Californie” and compares five recreations of historically significant maps of California to show the evolution of cartographic knowledge of the region. It was originally published as a supplemental material to Diderot’s Encyclopédie, and this particu...

Our March Map of the Month is this historic 1897 "Map of Cuba” published by an American company during the Cuban War of Independence, mere months before the start of the Spanish-American War. It portrays the various provinces, towns, and railroads of Cuba as well as its surrounding islands and close...

Our January Map of the Month is this 1916 map of “The Theatre of War in Mesopotamia”, displaying Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq and Syria) and Persia (modern-day Iran) as they appeared in the midst of World War I. This map was published in Edward Stanford’s War Map No. 9  and includes an inset of “The...

Our October Map of the Month is this 1963 map titled “Arizona’s Lost Mines and Ghost Towns”. It features some of Arizona’s most famous lost mines and ghost towns as well as the more obscure, and it includes many illustrations related to Arizona’s history and the “Wild West” era that these towns and ...

It’s been one month since Sun Devils came back to campus after nearly 16 months of remote learning. To celebrate our return to in-person learning, our September Map of the Month is this 1980 illustrated map of Tempe, Arizona. It highlights many of Tempe’s community landmarks and provides a look at j...

  Our August Map of the Month is this National Geographic map titled Europe and the Near East. It displays a comprehensive post-WWII view of Western and Eastern Europe as well as the North African Coast and part of the Middle East. Published in 1949 after the conclusion of several years of negotiat...

Our May Map of the Month is this Reconnoissance Map of the United States by William John McGee from 1893. It displays the geologic variation throughout the regions of the United States as documented at the time by the U.S. Geological Survey and various state Geological Surveys.    ...