With around two million cartographic items, the NLS map collection is the largest in Scotland and one of the largest in the world. NLS holdings cover all parts of the globe, and range from early atlases and manuscript maps to current digital mapping.

The National Library of Scotland map collection includes:

Over 1.5 million sheet maps
15,000 atlases
100,000 maps on microfilm
Growing volumes of digital mapping
Gazetteers, cartographic reference books and periodicals
Map ephemera.

New online! View more than 100 maps of Great Britain and the wider world, as part of the Signet Library map collection (1640s–1930s).

Around half of the maps relate to England, Wales, and Ireland and the collection includes several important early editions and unusual maps.

A New Geo-Referencing Tool for the Maps.

Up until now NLS has controlled the geo-referencing of their historic maps (which allows you to overlay them onto modern maps to see how things have changed over time).

Now you can try this process yourself (on any of the NLS maps) using the open source Allmaps Editor.

Historic Maps of India.

The National Library of Scotland has added online an additional 1,860 Survey of India maps, at the half-inch to the mile scale. These provide detailed coverage of large parts of India as well as the neighbouring countries of Bangladesh, Burma/Myanmar and Pakistan in the first half of the 20th century. These attractive and colourful maps show settlements, railways, roads, woodland and forest, cultivated land, rivers and irrigation tanks. These maps have been georeferenced so they can easily be compared with the present day.