Research Guides: Maps: Secondary sources

Call number ranges for books about maps and cartography

GA 1 - GA 1776	Mathematical geography; cartography
GA 101 - GA 1776	Cartography
GA 198	Cartographers. (Also see by country, GA 407 +)
GA 201 - GA 246	History of cartography. (Also see by country, GA 401 +)

Scholarly articles

Cartography

Academic Search Complete
Multi-disciplinary database that covers journals and magazines. Also contains hundreds of monographs, reports, conference proceedings, etc.
Scopus
An abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature, features tools to track, analyze and visualize research. Scopus delivers a comprehensive overview of the world's research output in the fields of science, technology, medicine, social sciences and arts and humanities. Dates of Coverage: NA.
JSTOR
Note: If you receive an error message while using JSTOR, please try clearing all JSTOR cache and cookies and searching again. While accessing it from off campus, you may also find that JSTOR works better in a private or incognito window, or over Bowdoin's VPN.

JSTOR is a highly selective digital library of academic content in many formats and disciplines. The collections include top peer-reviewed scholarly journals as well as respected literary journals, academic monographs, research reports from trusted institutes, and primary sources.
GeoRef
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Contains over 2.8 million bibliographic records to the geoscience literature of the world. Over 3,500 journals are reviewed for indexing in the GeoRef database as well as books, maps, government reports, conference papers, and these and dissertations. Dates of Coverage: 1669-Present.

History

America: History and Life
Abstracts and citations of articles, book chapters, reviews and dissertations covering the history of the United States and Canada. Dates of publication coverage: 1954-present; coverage for some journals back to the 19th century. Topics covered go back to pre-history.
Historical Abstracts
Covers the history of the world (excluding the United States and Canada) from 1450 to the present, including world history, military history, women's history, history of education, and more...provides indexing of more than 2,300 academic historical journals in over 40 languages back to 1955. Dates of Coverage: 1450-Present.
JSTOR
Note: If you receive an error message while using JSTOR, please try clearing all JSTOR cache and cookies and searching again. While accessing it from off campus, you may also find that JSTOR works better in a private or incognito window, or over Bowdoin's VPN.

JSTOR is a highly selective digital library of academic content in many formats and disciplines. The collections include top peer-reviewed scholarly journals as well as respected literary journals, academic monographs, research reports from trusted institutes, and primary sources.

Other disciplines

Browse our list of databases by subject.

Finding aids for maps - a selection

Check list of large scale maps published by foreign governments (Great Britain excepted) in the Library of Congress
Call Number: Bowdoin Govt Index LC 5.2:F 76
Civil War maps : an annotated list of maps and atlases in the Library of Congress
Call Number: Govt Index LC 5.2:C 49/989
Civil War newspaper maps : a cartobibliography of the Northern daily press
Call Number: Bowdoin Main Ref GA405.5 B67 1993
"During the course of the Civil War, Northern daily newspapers printed over 2,000 separate maps depicting campaigns and military operations. Although they are important primary documents, these maps have been largely overlooked by historians and enthusiasts because of the difficulty in locating them. This cartobibliography is the first finding aid to the war's journalistic cartography. The book lists all known Civil War maps published in eighteen daily newspapers in Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, Columbus, New York, Philadelphia, and St. Louis. Entries consist of map title, scale, dimensions, author (when known), engraver (when known), and notes on sources of information and geographic coverage. Maps are grouped by newspapers, which are arranged alphabetically, and listed chronologically under each newspaper. A thorough geographic, subject, and personal name index provides access to the entries." Syndetics™, a Bowker service
Guide to reference books
Call Number: Main Ref Z1035.1 .G89 1996
Useful for finding other finding aids. See "Atlases and Maps", pp. 1162-1177.
Historians' guide to early British maps : a guide to the location of pre-1900 maps of the British Isles preserved in the United Kingdom and Ireland
Call Number: Main Libr GA193.G7 H58 1994
A list of geographical atlases in the Library of Congress, with bibliographical notes
Call Number: Bowdoin Govt Index LC 5.2:G 29/
Publication Date: 1909-92
The mapping of the world : early printed world maps, 1472-1700
Call Number: Bowdoin Main Libr folio GA308.Z8 S48 1983
Mapping the transmississippi West, 1540-1861
Call Number: Bowdoin Spec Coll / Archives folio GA405 .W5 1957
Maps showing explorers' routes, trails & early roads in the United States; an annotated list
Call Number: Bowdoin Govt Doc LC 5.2:Ex 7
Publication Date: 1962
National Ocean Survey cartobibliography, Civil War collection
Call Number: Bowdoin Govt Doc C 55.402:C 54
(print and online)
Printed maps of the district and state of Maine, 1793-1860 : an illustrated and comparative study by Edward V. Thompson ; foreward by Matthew Edney
Call Number: Bowdoin Main Ref G3730 .T4 2010
Includes facsimiles of the maps.
Railroad maps of North America : the first hundred years
Call Number: Bowdoin Govt Doc LC 5.2 R 13/2
Railroad maps of the United States : a selective annotated bibliography of original 19th-century maps in the Geography and Map Division of the Library of Congress
Call Number: Bowdoin Govt Doc LC 5.2 R13
The West Point atlas of American Wars
Call Number: Bowdoin Main Libr folio G1201.S1 U5 1959

Mapmakers

American maps and mapmakers : commercial cartography in the nineteenth century by Walter W. Ristow
Call Number: Bowdoin Main Libr GA405 .R57 1985
Mapmakers of the sixteenth century and their maps : bio-bibliographies of the cartographers of Abraham Ortelius, 1570 : based on Leo Bagrow's A. Ortelii Catalogus cartographorum by Robert W. Karrow, Jr.
Call Number: Bowdoin Main Libr GA198 .K37 1993
Maps and map-makers by R. V. Tooley
Call Number: Bowdoin Main Libr GA201 .T6 1952
Tooley's Dictionary of mapmakers
Call Number: Bowdoin Main Ref GA198 .T66
"Persons associated with the production of maps from the earliest times to the year 1900."
Tooley's Dictionary of mapmakers. Supplement
Call Number: Bowdoin Main Ref GA198 .T66 Suppl

Also try Compass (keyword or subject search), biographical reference sources, or WorldCat.

Gazetteers

The Columbia gazetteer of the world

Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names Online

Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) (United States only)

Glossaries and Dictionaries

Glossary of mapping, charting, and geodetic terms, prepared for the Department of Defense by Defense Mapping Agency, Hydrographic Center, 1981.

Scale

The larger the number after the colon, the less detail you will see in the map. 1:5,000,000 might be considered a relatively small scale map.

The smaller the number after the colon, the more detail you will see in the map. 1:25,000 might be considered a relatively large scale map.