Cartography - Archive of Exhibitions Which Closed in 2013


Please see Cartography - Calendar of Exhibitions for a current calendar of exhibitions.
Click here for archive of past exhibitions.


March 26, 2011 – January 1, 2013 – Williamsburg
More than Meets the Eye: Maps and Prints of Early America is at the DeWitt Wallace Decorative Arts Museum, 326 West Francis Street. The exhibition features 35 maps, portraits, and other graphic images that invite the viewer to look more deeply into the subtle messages delivered by artisans depicting America. In addition to objects from the Colonial Williamsburg collections, the exhibition includes an outstanding documentary source for the 1920s restoration of the historic town—the “Frenchman’s” map, loaned by the College of William and Mary. The Connecticut Historical Society has also kindly agreed to loan their copy of Abel Buell’s "A New and correct Map of the United States of America,” the first map of the thirteen states to be published after the Congress of the Confederation ratified the treaty on January 14, 1784. Two programs in conjunction with the exhibit "Focus on Maps" and "Maps and Migration" will offer a closer look at specific types of maps. "Focus on Maps" will feature rare and important 17th and 18th century American maps. That program will be offered at 2:15 p.m. and 3:30 p.m. on Mondays from April 4-June 6. "Maps and Migration" will show transatlantic migration routes in British North America during a guided tour of the 17th and 18th century maps. That tour will be held at 4 p.m. on Thursdays May 5-June 9.



October 29, 2012 - January 1, 2013 - Cambridge, Massachusetts
Cartographic Grounds: Projecting the Landscape Imaginary uses maps to show old and new drawing techniques. Sections of an old map of Switzerland employs hachures - short lines used to depict an incline’s degree of slope. The show, on view at Gund Hall, Harvard Graduate School of Design , 48 Quincy, is also meant to give students a sense of the aesthetics that have been vividly present in cartography for centuries, but that may be muted in an age of 3-D representations of space. Curator Jill Desimini stood between a 13th-century map of the British Isles, on which settlements were marked with castles, and a flickering video made last month that stacked layers of geographic data. In defense of the modern age, she said, “It’s much more challenging to make something that has to work at so many different scales.” For those who are not students, Cartographic Grounds still has immense appeal, beginning with those aesthetics. “You can be immersed in a lot of beautiful maps and a lot of beautiful drawings,” said Desimini. Viewers can simply marvel at the rich lexicon of the ways that maps are organized and drawn. Within the idea of subsurface inventions, for instance, is the familiar stratigraphic column depicting layers of rock. This was a revolutionary idea in 1815, when William Smith published the first nation-scale geological map, depicting the fossil-rich subsurface layers that created Britain’s contours. Add to that the cross section, a mapping convention so familiar that it is now all but invisible. The exhibit includes a whimsical view of a South American mountain, with a verdant outer layer on one side and a mountain of words on the other. This is an 1802 botanical map by Alexander von Humboldt, meant to show how plant distribution was affected by elevation. The rest of the show offers lavishly illustrated lessons. There are the line symbols and conventional signs of temporal cartography, where precision overwhelms the need to show how a place looks from the air. A Federal Aviation Administration map of Los Angeles, for instance, replaces the look of a place to reflect the first imperative of air travel: Know where the ground is. In maps of the aqueous world, there are soundings and isobaths and spot elevations, including a water-depth map of a Dutch river in the 1730s. Then there are the hachures, shaded relief, and other conventions used to depict the terrestrial landscape. Quite logically, this is the biggest part of the exhibit, because ground maps have dominated cartography from the beginning. This is also the area of cartography where the past most strikingly meets the future. There are maps painstakingly mapped on foot by a surveyor. And there are maps derived from satellite technology, including a video display that allows the viewer to “fly” across the world at a bird’s-eye level.



November 30, 2012 – January 6, 2013 - Valletta, Malta
In the beginning of the 19th century Baron Charles Frederick Von Brocktorff (1775-1850) moved to Malta from Schleswig Holstein in Germany. He lived in Valletta and he and his wife had 12 children. He opened a gallery selling paintings and maps made by him and four of his sons. His business was very successful. The Malta Map Society, in collaboration with Heritage Malta, will sponsor an exhibition The Brocktorff Mapmakers. The exhibition will be held at the Museum of Fine Arts, South Street, and a catalog will be issued. Additional information from Rod Lyon.



October 20, 2012 - January 13, 2013 - Loveland, Colorado
Civil War: Maps, Money and Memories can be seen in the Loveland Museum/Gallery, 503 N. Lincoln Ave. Exhibit shows Civil War fractional currency and maps Dave Cole has collected.



November 11, 2012 – January 13, 2013 - Göttingen, Germany
The year 2012 marks 250 years since the death of Tobias Mayer. Mr. Mayer became a highly regarded mathematician, cartographer, and astronomer in the mid-1700s. He worked for the Homann family for several years. An exhibition illustrating aspects of his works, including maps made by him while working for the Homanns, can bee seen at Niedersächsische Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Göttingen, Platz der Göttinger Sieben 1.



November 27, 2012 – January 20, 2013 - Galloway, New Jersey
The Richard E. Bjork Library at Richard Stockton College, 101 Vera King Farris Drive, is hosting Surveying South Jersey, an exhibit of maps and artifacts representing the region in the mid-19th century. The display’s centerpiece is a beautifully restored Smith & Wistar map of Salem and Gloucester counties. The map measures 4.8 feet in width and 3.4 feet in depth and is water colored by hand. It is near the library’s reference desk. An accompanying exhibition, by two recent Stockton graduates, Nick Leonetti and James Pomar, describes New Jersey map-making at mid-nineteenth century, and gives a brief background on the two counties. The collection also includes a group of large Atlases containing maps of the Southern New Jersey coast, Philadelphia and what is now Camden County and Monmouth County, among other areas.



September 13, 2012 - January 21, 2013 - New York
Through maps, photographs, newspapers, government documents, and original artifacts, visitors will encounter Staten Island’s historical transformation and its changing roles as a farming center, as a rural retreat, as the site of rapidly residential communities, as a center for industry, and as an increasingly dense urban environment. From Farm to City: Staten Island 1661-2012 will also enable visitors to explore current debates about land preservation, environmental sustainability, and redevelopment on the island, including through a special case study of the Fresh Kills landfill redevelopment. The exhibition can be seen at Museum of the City of New York, 1220 Fifth Avenue.



October 4, 2012 - January 27, 2013 - Victoria, British Columbia
Envisioning the World: The First Printed Maps, 1472-1700, can be seen at Royal BC Museum, 675 Belleville Street. This collection of the earliest printed maps of the world reveals the rapidly unfolding understanding of geography and our place in the universe from the early Renaissance through the scientific Age of Enlightenment. The 30 rare and stunning maps, drawn from the extensive Wendt collection, also portray the first attempts to come to grips with the shape, size, and nature of the Earth and our solar system. One map from the Royal BC Museum’s historic map collection in the BC Archives will be on exhibit. Dated from 1696, the illuminated double-hemisphere view of the world is adapted and redrawn from the original work of the important French cartographer Nicholas Sanson (1600-1667). It provides a fascinating look at how European mapmakers of the time viewed the North Pacific with mythical wonder and scanty facts. The exhibition is accompanied by a beautiful 104-page catalogue available for purchase from the Royal Museum Shop.



October 23, 2012 – January 27, 2013 – Paris
An exhibition on Portolan charts from the thirteenth to the eighteenth century will be at the Bibliothèque nationale de France, François-Mitterrand site, Grand Galerie. For additional information contact cartes.plans@bnf.fr.



October 1, 2012 – February 9, 2013 - Arlington, Texas
An exhibit at University of Texas Arlington Library’s Special Collections, 702 Planetarium Place, titled Pearls of the Antilles: Printed Maps of Caribbean Islands, features over seventy maps and prints, drawn solely from the collections at UT Arlington.



August 24, 2012 - February 10, 2013 – Princeton
First X, Then Y, Now Z: Landmark Thematic Maps is the title of an exhibition in Main Gallery, Firestone Library. This exhibition introduces viewers to the early history of thematic mapping—the topical layering (Z) of geographic space (X-Y)—through both quantitative and qualitative examples. On display will be early, if not the earliest, thematic maps in various disciplines, such as meteorology, geology, hydrography, natural history, medicine, and sociology/economics. In some cases the maps literally changed the world in the sense that new scientific avenues of investigation resulted. Also, a selection of more fanciful, “theme” maps, on literary subjects, love/marriage, and utopia, will be shown. These exhibitions and their related events are free and open to the public thanks to the generous support of the Friends of the Princeton University Library.



January 23, 2013 – February 14, 2013 - West Windsor, New Jersey
Mercer County will officially kick off a yearlong celebration of its 175th Anniversary year with Mapping Mercer, an exhibition of historic and contemporary maps that trace some of the history of this region. The exhibit will be on display at The Gallery at Mercer County Community College, 1200 Old Trenton Road. On display for the first time since the early 1930s will be two of the county’s Master Plan maps. Other featured maps include Victorian bird’s-eye view maps of Hightstown, Hopewell Borough and Trenton, a 1719 map of “Pensilvania, New-Jersey, New-York, and the Three Delaware Counties,” and the last official map of New Jersey (1833) before Mercer became a county in 1838.



June 15, 2012 - February 23, 2013 - Harbor Springs, Michigan
A Delightful Destination: Little Traverse Bay at the Turn of the Century is the featured temporary exhibit at the Harbor Springs History Museum, 349 E. Main Street. In 1900 tourists and season residents flocked to waterfront communities around Little Traverse Bay including Petoskey and Harbor Springs. Luxury hotels opened serving fresh oysters and lobsters. Railroad and steamship companies created elaborate advertising campaigns that rival the current Pure Michigan program and an economy and way of life still visible today were created. Through vintage maps, photographs, books and postcards, A Delightful Destination: Little Traverse Bay at the Turn of the Century explores the region's transportation, cultural, and economic growth during this colorful period between 1890 and 1920.



December 10, 2012 - February 24, 2013 – Washington
The American Civil War is one of the defining events in American history. To commemorate its 150th anniversary, the Norman B. Leventhal Map Center at the Boston Public Library created the exhibition Torn in Two: the 150th Anniversary of the Civil War. This multimedia display takes a geographic and cartographic approach to exploring and illuminating the causes of the conflict, the conduct of the war and how the war was remembered in later years. A reduced traveling version of the exhibition can be seen at Ford’s Theater, Center for Education and Leadership, 514 10th Street NW, where it will showcase 40 historic maps and related graphics (including, manuscript letters, political cartoons, music and press of the period). A fully illustrated, 152-page exhibition catalog is available for US $35.00; for information about purchasing a copy, send inquiries to maps@bpl.org.



August 29, 2012 – February 28, 2013 – Singapore
Raffles' Letters, Intrigues behind the Founding of Singapore can be seen at the National Library Gallery, Level 10, National Library Building, 100 Victoria Street. The exhibition reveals important insights into the founding of Singapore in 1819 through letters written by Sir Stamford Raffles. Numerous maps of early Singapore and the surrounding area are displayed. Another highlight is a replica of what is believed to be the first landward map of Singapore. Dated 1820, the map contains details that are nor seen in subsequent maps and shows the Singapore Town in its infancy.



September 11, 2012 – February 28, 2013 – Portland, Maine
The exhibit, Iconic America: The United States Map as a National Symbol, is at the Osher Map Library and Smith Center for Cartographic Education, University of Southern Maine. The exhibit takes a broad look at the symbolic use of the mapped shape of the USA – “ushapia” – in a variety of forms: political campaigns; patriotic expressions; textiles and clothing; culinary and household goods; book covers; and magazine and newspaper graphics. John Fondersmith is guest curator for the exhibit, which will showcase a number of items from his collection. Fondersmith has been collecting various graphics and items that use the map shape of the United States for over 30 years. About 1990 he coined the word “ushapia” to describe a wide range of objects and graphics that, while not technically maps, use the basic map shape of the United States to symbolize the country. He hopes that the exhibit will spur further interest, discussion, and research on the symbolic use of the US map shape. Such logo maps are used daily in a range of media, and in a variety of forms, to convey ideas about the identity and nature of the USA. The “shape of the nation” is truly an important part of the American experience.



December 15, 2012 - March 18, 2013 - Durham, North Carolina
Instead of being just a navigational tool, maps may also help people understand the social context of past societies. Duke University students curated an exhibit devoted to analyzing maps in innovative ways at Perkins Lobby Gallery, Duke University Library. The exhibit, titled Mapping the City: A Stranger’s Guide, was hosted by students working on an independent study with Philip Stern, assistant professor of history and co-director at the Borderworks Humanities Lab. When the students learned that Perkins had reserved a space for a presentation of their choice, they developed an exhibit that featured unseen works from the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library collection and shed light on the numerous ways in which maps can be read. The exhibit includes rare works such as the Willem Blaeu Atlas and a sound map of modern-day London. For students interested in the University’s history, the exhibit features early 20th century photographs of East Campus.



January 12, 2013 – March 30, 2013 – Marseille
Mémoires des rives : cartes et portulans de Méditerranée is on display at Bibliothèque Alcazar BMVR, Place René Sarvil - 58, cours Belsunce. This exhibition reveals the treasures of various schools of portolan mapping, with a focus on the Marseille School. From the second half of the 16th century to the 17th century, Marseille became the center of portolan mapping. Several names illustrate the Marseille School of portolans: the Graffignia the Roussin, the Ambrosin. Many French and foreign institutions were approached for loans, to better illustrate the characteristics of these charts.



August 3, 2012 - March 31, 2013 – Cleveland
When residents of Cleveland meet for the first time at a party or event, one of the first questions is often “So do you live on the east side or west side?” People relocating to Cleveland and searching for an apartment or home quickly find out that the decision can have far ranging effects about their daily routines and even the friends they will make. Where does this geographical division arise and how long has it defined who we are as “Clevelanders?” Of course the dividing line is the Cuyahoga River, but why the Cuyahoga? When did it take on the power to define people and their lives? Drawing on a rich collection of maps at Western Reserve Historical Society, 10825 East Boulevard, East vs. West – Mapping Cleveland, the Western Reserve & the Midwest follows the history of how the area in which we live came to be mapped, divided up, separated into political areas of settlement, and maybe shed some light on how east versus west became so important in Cleveland. Interactive maps showing the earliest settlement of the area are superimposed with 2012 images of Google maps. Visitors can look at the changing downtown area by placing images of buildings on a large plat map, viewing mid-19th century through mid-20th century Cleveland. Also included are early survey tools called “Gunters Chains”, the use of maps in politics, and geographic changes through developments in transportation.



March 1, 2013 - April 14, 2013 – Annapolis
An exhibition titled Envisioning the World: The First Printed Maps, 1472-1700 can be seen at Elizabeth Myers Mitchell Gallery, St. Johns College, 60 College Avenue, Mellon Hall. The exhibition will feature approximately 30 rare world maps drawn from the collection of Henry Wendt, and will explore the major trends in intellectual history from the early Renaissance through the scientific era of the Enlightenment. Through the language of cartography, the maps in the exhibition illustrate the way in which scientists, mathematicians, explorers and cartographers came to grips with the shape, size and nature of the Earth as a whole and its place in the universe. Highlighted in the exhibition are the important contributions to this evolving cosmography of: Ptolemy (c. 90-168 ); Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543); Galileo Galilei (1564-1642); Johannes Kepler (1571-1630); and Edmond Halley (1656-1742). Works featured in the exhibition include: the first printed map (1472), a schematic concept of the continents in the form of a "T" encircled by an "O" of ocean; the first printed road map (1598), showing the cursus publicus, the postal system of the Roman Empire, in eight sections totaling 14 linear feet; highly decorative exemplars from the golden age of Dutch mapmaking (17th century); and elaborate hand-colored celestial views (1700), representing the constellations with figures from Greek mythology.



March 13, 2013 – April 17, 2013 – London
Inspired by the pioneering work of medical detective John Snow, who traced the source of a deadly cholera outbreak in 1850s London to a water pump in Soho, the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine is opening its doors to the public with an exhibition celebrating his work and legacy. Historical items on display from the archives of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, the Wellcome Library, Museum of London and the London Metropolitan Archives include rare maps and printed ephemera relating to cholera outbreaks at the time. Cartographies of Life & Death – John Snow and Disease Mapping can be seen at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, Keppel Street. Open Mon-Sat 10am-5pm. Free entry.



November 16, 2012 – April 23, 2013 – Boston
What did Boston look like in the early 19th century? Much different than it does today. By the late 1840s, the tidal basin in the Back Bay had become such a health menace city leaders had no choice but to act. In 1858 the most ambitious engineering project of its time was begun, filling in the tidal basin in the Back Bay to solve the public health issues and to provide more land to allow the city to grow. When the Great Fire of 1872 consumed about 65 acres of Boston’s downtown, the stage was set to rebuild the city with improved streets and building codes and thus the Boston we recognize today emerged! Using approximately 30 maps, photographs and prints, the Norman B. Leventhal Map Center, Boston Public Library, 700 Boylston St., exhibit Boston in the Gilded Age: Mapping Public Places focuses on the evolving street patterns and emerging park system from 1870-1900.



January - April 2013 - Providence, Rhode Island
Spain’s Florida was both larger and smaller than the present state. From New Spain to Newfoundland, everything west of the Atlantic coast was once known as “Terra Florida.” The Florida Story, 1513-1783: Reconnaissance and Rivalry on a Maritime Periphery uses historical maps and documents to tell the story of the Spanish and British rivalry for control of Florida. Exhibition can be seen in the reading room of the John Carter Brown Library, 94 George Street.



December 7, 2012 – May 7, 2013 – Edinburgh
The Bartholomew Archive, at the National Library of Scotland, is the remarkable record of the Edinburgh-based firm of map engravers, printers and publishers, John Bartholomew & Son Ltd. It is one of the most extensive cartographic archives available for research in a public institution. Putting Scotland on the map, a major exhibition of Bartholomew Archive material can be seen in the National Library of Scotland's main George IV Bridge building. This exhibit focuses on Bartholomew’s map production techniques, and showcases the diverse and eclectic content of the archive.



May 1-11, 2013 – Tehran
A collection of historical maps of the Persian Gulf is on display in an exhibition at the the 26th Tehran International Book Fair. The collection consists of 50 maps dating back to various historical periods. The maps are in Latin, English, French, Arabic, Spanish, Italian, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean and several other languages. Included are maps drawn by Gerardus Mercator, Abraham Ortelius, Jodocus Hondius, Ibrahim Muteferrika , John Thornton, John William Norie, Guillaume Delisle, and Guillaume Nicolas Delahaye.



December 12, 2012 – May 14, 2013 – Cambridge, Massachusetts
Ever since the Crystal Palace Exhibition of 1851, millions of people have flocked to world’s fairs and their extravagant displays of invention and artifice. With their eclectic juxtaposition of edifying exhibits, exotic cultural tableaux, and sideshow attractions, these celebrations of human ingenuity have had ramifications far beyond their restricted time and space. They have influenced aesthetic styles and promoted the adoption of new technologies. By reinforcing or challenging popular stereotypes, they have also shaped perceptions of gender, race, and ethnicity. A Fair to Remember: Mapping International Expositions explores the cartographic depiction of world’s fairs in London, Paris, Philadelphia, Antwerp, Chicago, Buffalo, St. Louis, San Francisco, New York, and Osaka. The pictorial maps, views, and plans on display are accompanied by related artifacts such as trade cards, postcards, cane maps, photographs, and booklets (including a guide to the contents of a time capsule). Exhibit can be seen in the Map Gallery Hall, Pusey Library. For further information, contact Joseph Garver at 617-496-3670.



April 24, 2013 – May 20, 2013 – Istanbul
Istanbul's Topkapi Palace Museum is home to a new exhibition, featuring a variety of maps and books on geography dating back to the Ottoman period. Titled
Piri Reis'ten Once ve Sonra: Topkapi Sarayi'nda Haritalar (Before and After Piri Reis: Maps in Topkapi Palace), the exhibition is on at the museum's Has Ahirlar Exhibit Hall. The show is a part of a series of cultural events organized for the Year of Piri Reis, as declared by the UNESCO Turkish National Commission on the occasion of the 500th anniversary of the drawing of a world map by Ottoman admiral and cartographer Piri Reis. The Topkapi Palace Museum Directorate prepared the exhibition in collaboration with the Bilkent Cultural Initiative (BKG). The show presents 63 pieces from the museum's archive. Piri Reis's maps of 1513 and 1528 and his “Kitab-i Bahriye” (Book of Navigation) are among the highlights of the show. Other maps by historian-geographer Katip Çelebi, admiral and cartographer Ali Macar Reis and mathematician and cartographer Matrakçi Nasuh are also featured. In addition, the exhibition is showcasing sketches of towers the Ottomans used during the Siege of Szigetvar and Belgrade and Ottoman books on geography.



April 4, 2013 - May 24. 2013 - DeKalb, Illinois
Maps purport to objectively document systems or spaces, yet are often at odds with our subjective responses to our surroundings. Mapping: Measuring Across Place and Period; Information, Navigation and Geography will explore this theme by presenting visual representations of objective and subjective mapping systems. This theme is open to broad interpretations, including, but not limited to: macro/micro systems; real/imagined spaces; man-made constructions; geographical formations; astronomical configurations; anatomical structures, etc. Potential mapping schemes are included but not limited to: traditional cartography; topographical elevations; navigational directions; treasure maps; flow charts; family trees; assembly instructions; search engine mapping systems; smart phone applications, etc. This exhibition will be curated by Northern Illinois University Museum Studies students enrolled in ART 656 and will be held in the South Gallery of the Northern Illinois University Art Museum. The galleries are on the west end of the first floor of Altgeld Hall.



March 2, 2013 - June 16, 2013 - Davenport, Iowa
Marking Territory: Cartographic Treasures of the Mississippi River and the World Beyond is a special exhibition organized by the Figge Art Museum, 225 West Second Street. Featuring a selection of historic maps that range from early representations of the world to more detailed examinations of America’s vast interior west of the Mississippi, the exhibition explores how maps communicate highly complex ideas about identity, politics and culture.



April 19, 2013 – June 14, 2013 – Columbus, Georgia
A leading Columbus State University supporter, J. Kyle Spencer, has donated to CSU Archives one of the most comprehensive collections of the early maps of Georgia. Before becoming part of the CSU Archives on the top floor of CSU’s Schwob Memorial Library on main campus, a sampling of the maps will be on display as the J. Kyle Spencer Map Exhibition at the W.C. Bradley Co. Museum, 1017 Front Avenue. Admission to the W.C. Bradley Co. Museum is free to the public. The gallery housing the map samples will be open from 8 a.m.-5 p.m. on weekdays, until 8 p.m. on Friday, April 26, from 8 a.m.-5 p.m. on Saturday, April 27 and from 1-5 p.m. on Sunday, April 28.



May 15, 2013 – June 22, 2013 – Washington
An exhibit of all of Waldseemuller's maps brought together under one roof for the first time in history can be seen at the Library of Congress, Kislak Gallery, second floor, Jefferson Building. Waldseemüller corpus includes the 1507 World Map, the mysterious John Carter Brown-Stevens world map, the 1507 Globes Gores, Waldseemüller's 1513 edition of Ptolemy's Geographia, and the 1516 Carta Marina.



June 6-29, 2013 - Boise, Idaho
In the early 1860s, residents of the newly founded city of Boise navigated by landmarks, the occasional hand-drawn map or even by the sun and stars. Today's citizens are more inclined to turn to smartphones and let their GPS decide their best routes. Celebrating the city's 150th anniversary--its sesquicentennial--that gradual shift is currently on display at Boise's Sesqui-Shop, 1008 Main St., in the Finding Your Way Home exhibition, a collection of historical and artistic maps from the 1863 founding of Boise up to the present day. Perhaps the exhibition's most significant piece is the very first city plat, circa July 1863, on display in the entrance. Studded with 19th century photos of Boise's original buildings, the plat maps a mere four square blocks. On an opposite wall, a hand-quilted map displays Boise's expansion over the years, supplemented by an original 1890 lithograph showing an illustrated aerial view of Boise at the time.



June 24, 2013 - July 18, 2013 – London
Historical Images from the Cortazzi Collection commemorates the tenth anniversary of the establishment of the Lady Sainsbury Library at the Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures in Norwich. Over a period of half a century, Sir Hugh and Lady Cortazzi amassed a collection of over sixty historical surveys of Japan, both European and Japanese. This exhibition displays a selection of images from that collection including a Venetian image from the early sixteenth century and also those made in Japan during the Edo (1603 ― 1868 CE) and Meiji (1868 ― 1912 CE) periods. Exhibition can be seen at the Embassy of Japan, 101/104 Piccadilly, London W1J 7JT. Open Monday - Friday, 09:30 - 17:30, admission free.



January 18, 2013 – July 20, 2013 – Washington
The French artist and engineer Pierre L'Enfant (1754-1825) made vital
contributions to the early formation of the American nation and American identity. As a foreign volunteer in the Continental Army and, later, as a citizen of the new nation, L'Enfant created imagery that helped define the new American republic. During the Revolutionary War, L'Enfant's artistic talent caught the attention of General Steuben, who commissioned him to draw the illustrations for Regulations for the Order and Discipline of the Troops of the United States, the first official manual of the Continental Army. The Frenchman was appointed captain in the Continental Army Corps of Engineers and participated in the southern campaign, where he was wounded at the battle of Savannah and taken prisoner at Charleston. At the close of the war, L'Enfant became an original member of the Society of the Cincinnati and created three emblems of membership for the organization that became artistic expressions of the achievement of American independence. Remaining in America after the war, L'Enfant designed monuments, buildings, parades, and other patriotic events celebrating the new nation. His work culminated in the 1791 plan for Washington, D.C., a grand vision that would guide development of the American capital for the next century and beyond. Pierre L'Enfant's Vision for the American Republic can be seen at Anderson House, 2118 Massachusetts Avenue, NW.



May 7, 2013 - July 27, 2013 – London
Cholera, Chloroform and Disease Maps is an exhibition to mark the bicentenary of John Snow and can be seen in the library of The Royal Society of Medicine, 1 Wimpole Street. Maps on display include lesser known ones e.g. of Oxford & New Orleans. Entrance to the exhibition is free.



July 28, 2013 - August 12, 2013 - Lafayette, Louisiana
Mr Walter Dobie was a geologist. He traveled worldwide and acquired an extensive collection of old maps. His maps will be exhibited at the Alexandre Mouton House, 1122 Lafayette Street.



June 13, 2013 - August 15, 2013 - Sydney, Nova Scotia
A new exhibit at the Cape Breton University Art Gallery will give local residents and visitors alike a glimpse into the lives of the first settlers at Louisbourg. Titled The Most Suitable Place: The Founding of Louisbourg and Île Royale in 1713, the exhibit coincides with the 300th anniversary of the founding of Louisbourg, a milestone which is being marked this year at the Fortress of Louisbourg. Maps of the region from the Beaton Institute’s collection line the walls of the gallery and date from 1565 to 1765. The exhibit moves to l’Universite de Moncton from Oct. 29, 2013 to Feb. 2, 2014.



April 1, 2013 – August 30, 2013 – Portland, Maine
The American Civil War is one of the defining events in American history. To commemorate its 150th anniversary, the Norman B. Leventhal Map Center at the Boston Public Library created the exhibition Torn in Two: the 150th Anniversary of the Civil War. This multimedia display takes a geographic and cartographic approach to exploring and illuminating the causes of the conflict, the conduct of the war and how the war was remembered in later years. It will showcase 50 historic maps interwoven with 40 photographs, paintings, prints, diaries, political cartoons, music and press of the period. The exhibit can be seen at the Osher Map Library, 314 Forest Avenue. A fully illustrated, 152-page exhibition catalog is available for US $35.00; for information about purchasing a copy, send inquiries to maps@bpl.org.



June 8, 2013 - August 31, 2013 - Marbletown, New York
Ulster and the Hudson Valley in Maps: 1729-1957 is a special exhibit at Bevier House Museum, 2682 Route 209. Philip Ryan shares his collection of maps of Ulster County dating from 1729 to 1957. The maps, including hand-drawn examples, were used for military purposes, property titles and global education about the New World. Hours noon-5 p.m. Thurs.-Sun.



March 25, 2013 - August 2013 – Denver
It’s 1864, and amid the hubbub surrounding the opening of what will later be known as the University of Denver, a trend in mapping has been taking place. At face value, the maps of Denver are simply visual cues for getting from point A to point B. But if you look closely, the cartography is part of a larger, clever marketing campaign. Climate maps show Denver’s dry winds are a godsend for anyone suffering from lung ailments such as tuberculosis. A local booster produces another map praising the Front Range as the most healthful place to live. The resounding theme: “Go West.” “Every map makes a case for something, even if it’s a map of weather patterns,” says history Professor Susan Schulten, one of the masterminds behind the Anderson Academic Commons’ opening mapping exhibit, Maps: From the Local to the Global. The Academic Commons is located in University of Denver, Penrose Library, 2150 East Evans Avenue. With maps that track a wide range of American life - from disease and climate to slavery and the U.S. Census - Schulten demonstrates that the very definition of a map began to expand in the 19th century. Once limited primarily to describing landscapes and aiding in way finding, maps began to be used for more analytic and problem-solving purposes. In other cases, maps served special interests. What J.H. Flett’s 1881 hand-drawn lithograph of Denver lacks in exactitude it makes up for in beauty. In fact, businesses of the day paid the lithographer to draw their buildings in a favorable light for marketing purposes.



June 28, 2013 - August 2013 - Rutherford, New Jersey
What if someone told you that a map could show why your basement floods when it rains? The Meadowlands Museum, 91 Crane Avenue, is putting on such a program this summer with its Finding Our Place in History, a map exhibition project being showcased at the Yereance Berry House. The map exhibit highlights the museum's Yereance Berry House's location from the 1680s to the present. By locating the Meadowlands Museum site throughout history- from primitive 1600s maps through the early 1800s farmlands maps, the mid 1800s Boiling Springs Resort maps, and later, the 19th Century suburban subdivision maps, right up to the current time with the use of municipal land use maps and technological Google maps- visitors will learn about the area's development and even gain interesting facts about - residential homes. For example, from these maps we discover that the Berry House was a larger farmhouse on a main road surrounded by fields and that Crane Avenue was actually a brook and a pond that flowed down to Berry's Creek. The maps show where lakes and rivers are that are now buried. The maps show the reason why neighbors of the museum may get some water in their houses.



August 25, 2013 - September 1, 2013 - Bay City, Pasay, Philippines
Putting the Philippines on the Map, an exhibit organized by the Philippine Map Collectors Society to help promote a sense of national pride, is on view at the Mall of Asia main lobby. With texts in Filipino and English, the exhibit hopes to make the appreciation and interpretation of maps accessible to a wide audience.



September 4-6, 2013 – Brisbane
A controversial map that casts doubt on when Europeans discovered Australia will be displayed down under for the first time at an exclusive exhibition of the nation’s earliest chartings. Novae Guineae Forma and Situs – a 1593 map that depicts a giant, unnamed land mass believed by some experts to be Australia – pre-dates the earliest confirmed map of the continent by more than a decade. It is part of a collection of similarly unique, priceless maps – nearly all of which have never been displayed outside Europe – that will be exhibited by the National Library of Australia at the nation’s largest spatial event, Ozri 2013: A Spatial Odyssey, in Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre.



October 16, 2011 - September 8, 2013 – Rotterdam
How do you find your way on the open sea? You can forget about it if you do not have a proper map of the world. However, making such a map is a quite complex process. Try creating a good representation of a spherical shape like the Earth on a flat world map. The solution found by the 16th century cartographer Mercator became world-famous because sailors were able to plot their courses on nautical charts using a straight line for the first time. Discover everything about navigation at sea – both with and without Mercator’s map - at the family exhibition Steady as she goes - Sailing by Mercator's map at the Maritime Museum Rotterdam, Leuvehaven 1. Historical maps and shipmodels will help you, but you will also be working with globes, binoculars, compasses, the stars and modern navigation equipment such as satellites and GPS. The only remaining copy of Mercator’s world map in atlas format and his recently restored globe can also be admired at the exhibition.



November 16, 2012 - September 15, 2013 – Lucerne
Following up a long tradition of cartography, the Museum Gletschergarten Luzern, Denkmalstrasse 4, wishes to devote the special exhibition Ueli's Maps – A Fascinating Work of Cartography to the extensive map-work of the Swiss engineer and cartographer Ueli Läuppi from Kriens by Lucerne. In contrast to the historical maps and landscape reliefs in the possession of the Gletschergarten [Glacier Garden] depicting Central Switzerland and the Alpine region, Ueli Läuppi's maps stretch a great bow over lands and panoramas around the entire planet. After decades of research and meticulous handwork, the much-travelled Läuppi has created an opus that registers a new outlook towards topographical and thematic correlations. Stemming from this initial vision, there has emerged a most original and fascinating work of cartography of highest aesthetic content.



August 14, 2013 - September 20, 2013 – Tokyo
Maps of Japanese cities that were devastated by Allied air raids during World War II are currently on display at the National Archives of Japan in Tokyo's Chiyoda Ward. Covering 131 municipalities stretching from northern Hokkaido to southern Kagoshima Prefecture, most of the maps are being shown to the public for the first time. The maps were completed in December 1945 to provide information to military personnel, as well as civilian workers for the military, on their way home from overseas battlefields. Records show the maps were displayed in ships bringing back demobilized soldiers to Japan, according to officials. “People must have stared at the maps to find any clues about (damage to) their homes, places where their families evacuated and other areas,” said Yukiko Nagae, an archivist at the National Archives of Japan. “I would like visitors to imagine how people at the time felt.” Titled, Record of air raids: General maps of war damage in major cities in Japan, the exhibition is being organized to give people an opportunity to think about the destruction of wars.



April 30, 2013 - September 27, 2013 - Columbia, South Carolina
Gettysburg: History and Memory is a special exhibit at The University of South Carolina in the Hollings Special Collections Library. It includes a rare 1863 pamphlet of President Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, military texts showing strategy and tactics used and personal accounts written by the soldiers involved. It also includes maps and newspaper reports of the conflict. The exhibit marks the 150th anniversary of the battle, which took place from July 1-3, 1863. The Library is open Monday-Friday 8:30 am to 5:00 pm.



September 7-28, 2013 - Rensselaer, Indiana
Maps can be viewed, both as documents and as mirrors of their times; they are explored in the Indiana Historical Society exhibition Indiana Through the Mapmaker's Eye at the Jasper County Historical Society Museum, 479 N. Van Rensselaer St. The exhibition, drawn from over 1,500 maps and atlases of Indiana and the Midwest dating from 1577 to the present, shows four ways people use maps.



January 27, 2013 – September 29, 2013 - Hoboken, New Jersey
The Hoboken Historical Museum, 1301 Hudson St., in the main gallery, has an exhibit, Mapping the Territory: Hudson County in Maps, 1840-2013. The exhibit shows how the county developed from a group of small, agricultural townships to one of the most densely populated counties in the state. A map of Hoboken from 1860 shows boardwalks crisscrossing the undeveloped “meadows” in the western half of the city, where streets are still called by their traditional names, Paterson Plank Road and Hackensack Plank Road. The maps show how the region evolved, originally from marshes and granite cliffs to farms settlements inhabited by the Dutch, British and independent Americans; and ultimately to diverse urban communities of today.



May 23, 2013 - September 30, 2013 – Cambridge, Massachusetts
Mapping Imperial China: A Cultural Exchange is an exhibit in Map Gallery Hall, located just outside the Map Collection in Pusey Library, Harvard University. Conventional narratives of East-West interaction in the cartographic sphere tend to portray the cultural exchange as a lopsided, tutelary relationship in which the more “primitive” society inevitably pays fealty to more scientifically sophisticated and objective standards of mapmaking. The simplistic assumptions embedded in this model often misrepresent the dynamic negotiation that occurs in the definition of geographical space. This exhibit examines the complex web of influences and cross-influences that resulted in the frequent metamorphoses of “China” over the centuries. With a focus on the last two dynastic periods-the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1912)-the maps displayed here will illustrate the genealogical associations of concepts, images, and stories that have shaped our views of one another. For further information, contact Joseph Garver at 617-496-3670.



July 3, 2013 – October 4, 2013 – Helsinki
The map exhibition
From Observation to Map – the History of Cartography and Surveying in Finland can be seen at the National Archives, Rauhankatu 17. The exhibition is a collection of historically significant maps and charts as well as geodetic instruments. The oldest map is a chart of the Gulf of Finland drawn by Kucas Waghenaer in the 16th century. Open Tuesday-Friday 11-16.



April 27, 2013 – October 6, 2013 - Barnard Castle, County Durham
The Bowes Museum will have a special exhibit honouring the 250th anniversary of the start of the drawing of the Mason Dixon line in 1763:
Jeremiah Dixon Scientist, Surveyor and Stargazer. Come and discover how a young man from a pit village in County Durham travelled the world and became one of the finest Scientists of the 18th century. Marvel at his achievements in Astronomy. Be enchanted by his artistic talent. Explore the Mason-Dixon Line.



August 27, 2013 – October 13, 2013 – Gotha
The Forschungsbibliothek Gotha and the University of Erfurt organized a exhibition of German cartography of Palestine in the 19th century titled The Holy Land in Gotha. It can be seen in the Hall of Mirrors, Schloss Friedenstein.



September 21, 2013 - October 26, 2013 - Eugene, Oregon
The Lane County Historical Society, 740 W 13th Ave., has placed 20 old archive maps on display in the Map Show, Archival Collection. The old maps on display are a selection showing Eugene, Springfield, Lane County and Florence. One of the oldest, if not the oldest map on display is a May 1856 plat map of Eugene City, predating statehood by 3 years. An undated old Eugene map shows a separate district called Fairmount and something else unusual. Basically it's a projected railroad that goes nowhere. There’s also an old 1890 semi-aerial view of Eugene with a University of Oregon map in lower right hand corner that incorrectly labels UO as Oregon State University, and tuition free.



April 26, 2013 – October 27, 2013 – Helsinki
The Emerging World - Map Treasures from the A. E. Nordenskiöld Collection can be seen at the National Museum of Finland, Mannerheimintie 34, in rooms 131-132 on the museum's 1st floor. The exhibition covers the emerging view of the world, daring expeditions, rivalries among colonial powers, and the expeditions' effects on the accumulation of scientific knowledge. Nordenskiöld was born, studied, and began his researcher career in Finland. The exhibition also tells of his colourful life and accomplishments. Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld (1832-1901) made 10 research expeditions to the Arctic Ocean, and in 1878-1879 was the first explorer to sail through the Northeast Passage on a continuous trip. After preparing for his expeditions by studying old maps and travel accounts, Nordenskiöld gradually became interested in the history of cartography and was later a world famous pioneer in that field. The National Library of Finland's A. E. Nordenskiöld collection is one of the world's most significant collections of old maps. The collection includes 24,000 maps printed before the year 1800. There is an accompanying publication: “The Emerging World - Map Treasures from the A. E. Nordenskiöld Collection,” SKS, 2013.



September 20, 2013 - November 2, 2013 – London
After lying hidden for more than half a century, an inspiring collection of prints, posters and original artworks will be displayed in this major retrospective of the graphic designer MacDonald ‘Max’ Gill at PM Gallery & House,Walpole Park, Mattock Lane. Working as an illustrator, letterer, architect, mapmaker and mural painter, MacDonald ‘Max’ Gill, younger brother of the sculptor and typeface designer Eric Gill, produced a diverse body of work throughout a career spanning over four decades. Although celebrated during his lifetime his works have since faded from view, this exhibition will rediscover his innovative works and explore their influence on the field of graphic design in the early 20th century. Gill is perhaps best known for his richly-coloured and intricate pictorial maps, in particular the 1914 ‘Wonderground’ map produced for London Underground which sold in its thousands and inspired a resurgence of pictorial and decorative map-making worldwide. Out of the Shadows: MacDonald Gill was presented initially by the University of Brighton’s Faculty of Arts in Summer 2011. The exhibition at PM Gallery & House includes new exhibits and is shown with thanks to Andrew and Angela Johnston and Caroline Walker.



May 1, 2013 – November 3, 2013 – Boston
Charting an Empire: The Atlantic Neptune can be seen at the Boston Public Central Library, Copley Square (Norman B. Leventhal Map Center). The period following the French and Indian War (1754-1763) was a time of change and discovery in Atlantic Canada. In back-to-back exhibitions featuring charts, views, and maritime objects, the Map Center will look at the decade following the war, when Britain set out to accurately chart the coast and survey the inland areas of their new resource-rich North American Empire. The resulting charts were published collectively by Joseph Frederick Wallet Des Barres (1722-1824) in The Atlantic Neptune, a maritime atlas which set the standard for nautical charting for nearly half a century. This two-part exhibition will examine the importance of accurate charting of the new empire, define how Britain put her mark on the land, and explore the complex processes of marine surveying and nautical chart production.
Part I: Atlantic Canada (May 1 to July 28, 2013)
Part II: Eastern Seaboard of the United States (August 1 to November 3, 2013)



August 31, 2013 - November 8, 2013 - Odessa, Texas
The Ellen Noel Art Museum, 4909 University Blvd, is trying to stretch the boundaries of art with its Going to Texas: Five Centuries of Texas Maps exhibit. “Back in the ’20s or even earlier, when people were moving from the East to Texas, they would often leave in a hurry, and to let their neighbors know where they went, they would scrawl ‘GTT’ over their doorways — ‘Going to Texas,’” said Doylene Land, curator of education. The sixty four original maps range from the earliest sixteenth-century maps of New Spain to early settlement, the republic and statehood, and into the twenty-first century. Through observing the maps in the exhibit, the viewer can chronologically trace the history and development of the state of Texas through the evolution of boundaries over time. The exhibit is designed to educate children on map reading skills as well as the history of Texas. It includes hands-on activities working with compasses, legends, scales and all things navigation and exploration. This exhibition is from the Yana and Marty Davis Map Collection of the Museum of the Big Bend, Sul Ross State University, Alpine, Texas.



April 2, 2013 - November 9, 2013 – Madison, Wisconsin
We all use maps to find our way. Yet maps can show much more than destinations. They help define who we are and where we belong, and can help us understand our world in new ways. See a variety of striking, intriguing and revealing maps from the rich collection of the Wisconsin Historical Society and explore the place we call Wisconsin. You Are Here: Maps and Meanings features a wide array of maps both current and historic. In addition to early maps of the state, the exhibit includes propaganda maps, Native American maps, maps showing ethnic diversity and racial identity, and even maps of frac sands and Chronic Wasting Disease. The exhibit can be seen 9 am–4 pm, Tuesday through Saturday, at Wisconsin Historical Museum, Capitol Square, 30 N Carroll St.



November 15, 2013 - December 6, 2013 - Puducherry, India
They are old maps, some nearly three centuries old, and they depict a lost French town in India. A town that was systematically destroyed by the British forces after the French lost the war. Now more than 270 years since they were drawn the maps of Mahe will be put up for display. Alliance Francaise de Pondichery in collaboration with the Institut Francais de Pondichery and the department of art and culture, Government of Puducherry are all set to put up an exhibition of old maps and plans culled from the French archives and painstakingly curated by resident historian Jean Deloche. Entitled Old Mahe -1721-1817, the exhibition can be seen at Alliance Francaise's Maison Colombani, 37, Dumas St, White Town.



October 1, 2013 - December 9, 2013 - Milledgeville, Georgia
Thanks to a pair of former Georgia College & State University professors, the Milledgeville school has a fine collection of antique maps featuring Georgia, and many of them are on public display, giving a glimpse of politics and demographics long past. Thomas and Janice Armstrong spent years collecting the maps, which range in scope from Georgia alone to all of North America. They donated most of their collection to Georgia College, where it will eventually be housed in the library’s Special Collections section for use by researchers and in occasional exhibits. But for now, 17 of the 40 maps have been selected for the Mapping Georgia History: A Personal Journey display at Georgia’s Old Capital Museum, on the ground floor of the former statehouse, now part of the Georgia Military College campus, 201 E. Greene St. Hours are 10 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, and noon to 4 p.m. Saturday.



November 28, 2013 – December 22, 2013 – Bath
The American Museum in Britain, Claverton Manor, is presenting an exhibition entitled
New World, Old Maps. The display, celebrating the ancient map collection of museum co-founder Dr Dallas Pratt, is to illustrate the changing cartography scene as European explorers discovered the New World. The exhibit will be displayed again March 22, 2014 to December 2, 2014.



January 17, 2013 - December 31, 2013 - Tallahassee, Florida
The Florida Historic Capitol Museum, 400 South Monroe Street, is hosting an exclusive new exhibition as part of the statewide “Viva Florida 500” commemoration of Ponce de Leon's landing in Florida and the following five hundred years of historical transitions. Navigating New Worlds: Identity, Perception, and Politics in Florida highlights rare and important maps and prints from the Michael W. and Dr. Linda M. Fisher collection. Approximately thirty maps and prints will be on view from the Fisher collection, consisting of some of their most rare and historically important pieces. Visitors will explore the ties between outsiders' perceptions of Florida, the experiences of those actually living in the region, and how these interactions shaped Florida's settlement. Through historical interpretation based on scholarly research and document translations, the maps on display will depict the influence of Europeans on the future shape of Florida but also reflect the continuity of various cultures and languages throughout the transformation of Florida's political landscape into the Florida that we know today.



November 27, 2013 – December 31, 2013 - Providence, Rhode Island
Rhode Island College is home to an exhibit that traces the fictions and realities manifested in the maps of North Africa. The exhibit, titled Mapping North Africa: A Cartographic History, 16th-19th Centuries, will be displayed in the main lobby of the Adams Library, 600 Mount Pleasant Avenue. It is composed of 17 maps from the extensive map collection of Richard Lobban, RIC professor emeritus of anthropology. Arranged chronologically, the 17 maps show how the cartographic topography of North Africa transformed over the centuries from fantastical depictions into accurate pieces.



June 28, 2013 - December 2013 - Oneida, New York
The Oneida Community Mansion House, 170 Kenwood Ave., will display Local History in Maps. The exhibit features about a dozen works including several recent donations, showcasing the museum’s little known map holdings. Most are on public display for the first time. Ranging from the 1850s to the 1950s, these maps illustrate our past in the form of building locations, roads and railroads; water and trolley lines; a golf course and a cemetery. They show the world in plan, from the air, in isometric projection, and even in imaginary view. The display includes early wall maps of Madison and Oneida Counties which show houses and identify their owners. There are maps illustrating features of Oneida Community life documented nowhere else. The majority reveal the look of Kenwood and Sherrill around 1900.



October 25, 2013 – December, 2013 – Istanbul
The Naval Museum in Istanbul's Besiktaş district has a special exhibition, marking the 500th anniversary of Ottoman admiral and cartographer Piri Reis's famous world map. Instead of offering a mere presentation of the historic map,
Piri Reis ve Haritaları [Piri Reis and His Maps] makes possible a comparison between Piri Reis and his contemporary peers and also offers a look at technological advancements of his era. Piri Reis drew maps and charts describing around 2,000 ports and coastal cities surrounding the Mediterranean Sea, which are collected in his “Kitab-ı Bahriye” (Book of Navigation). Fifty of his maps from “Kitab-ı Bahriye” are displayed side by side with recent satellite images of the locations Piri Reis charted. Visitors can also compare Piri Reis's achievements with his contemporaries such as Christopher Columbus and Gerardus Mercator.