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 wa ...

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 ''north ...

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 sou ...

, 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 Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is conside ...

, including 150,000 maps and their

digital images A digital image is an image composed of picture elements, also known as ''pixels'', each with '' finite'', '' discrete quantities'' of numeric representation for its intensity or gray level that is an output from its two-dimensional functions ...

, 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 DigitizationTech Target. (2011, April). Definition: digitization. ''WhatIs.com''. Retrieved December 15, 2021, from https://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/digitization is the process of converting information into a Digital data, digital (i ...

items available through the website, hundreds of which were hosted through

Google Earth Google Earth is a computer program that renders a 3D computer graphics, 3D representation of Earth based primarily on satellite imagery. The program maps the Earth by superimposition, superimposing satellite images, aerial photography, and geog ...

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 Metadata is "data that provides information about other data", but not the content of the data, such as the text of a message or the image itself. There are many distinct types of metadata, including: * Descriptive metadata – the descriptive ...

, 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. T ...

, 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