The David Rumsey Historical Map Collection is a large private
map collection with over 150,000
maps and
cartographic items. The collection was created by
David Rumsey
David Rumsey (born 1944) is an American map collector and the founder of the David Rumsey Map Collection. He is also the president of Cartography Associates.
Rumsey has a Bachelor of Arts and a Master of Fine Arts from Yale University and was ...
who, after making his fortune in
real estate
Real estate is property consisting of land and the buildings on it, along with its natural resources such as crops, minerals or water; immovable property of this nature; an interest vested in this (also) an item of real property, (more genera ...
, focused initially on collecting 18th- and 19th century maps of
North
North is one of the four compass points or cardinal directions. It is the opposite of south and is perpendicular to east and west. ''North'' is a noun, adjective, or adverb indicating direction or geography.
Etymology
The word ''no ...
and
South America
South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the souther ...
, as this era "saw the rise of modern cartography."
After 2004 Rumsey expanded the collection to include maps from the 16th though 21st centuries, covering more of the world. In 2008 the collections's website was cited as one of only seven websites with freely available "skillfully compiled carto-bibliographic entries with corresponding early-map images."
[Joel Kovarsky (2008), "Carto-Bibliography on the Web: Links Combinging Text and Image", ''Imago Mundi'', vol. 60, no.1, pp. 93–96. .] At that time the site comprised 16,000 digital images.
[
In February 2009, David Rumsey announced that the entire collection would be donated to Stanford University, including 150,000 maps and their digital images, as well as the database used to track the images. Stanford houses the collection in the new David Rumsey Map Center which opened in the main library in 2016. The website (where the images are posted on-line) was to continue as a separate public resource.
As of February 2022, there were over 114,000 digitized items available through the website, hundreds of which were hosted through Google Earth layers. Select maps are also featured at the Rumsey Maps island in Second Life. as well as 2D and 3D GIS. A new MapRank search tool has been added enabling geographical searching of about 60,000 maps from the collection by map location and coverage. In addition, a Georeferencer tool has been added that allows site users to georeferenced and display any of the maps in the collection. The website has additional viewers from Luna Imaging, Inc, including the LUNA browser which doesn’t require any special plug-ins or software to view the collection, zoom into image detail, create slide shows, media groups, or presentations.
The website also has a blog listing new additions to the collection, featured maps, news, videos, and related sites.
When a document is found on the website, it is usually accompanied by extensive metadata, such as author, date of publication, ]short title
In certain jurisdictions, including the United Kingdom and other Westminster-influenced jurisdictions (such as Canada or Australia), as well as the United States and the Philippines, primary legislation has both a short title and a long title.
The ...
, type, dimensions, note(s), area, full title of the document, full title of the publication it may be part of with notes and download options.[E.g.]
''Caarte Vande Reede ende Haven van Medenblick, hoemen die ...''
by Willem Jansz. Blaeu from 1620
References
External links
David Rumsey Map Collection: Cartography Associates
{{commons category-inline, David Rumsey Historical Map Collection
Map collections
Historical geographic information systems
Discipline-oriented digital libraries
American digital libraries
Map websites