Please see Cartography - Calendar of
Exhibitions for a current calendar of exhibitions.
Click
here for archive of past exhibitions.
July 9, 2025 - January 5, 2026 –
Marseille
The Reading the Sky / Beneath the Stars of the
Mediterranean exhibition, at Musée des civilisations de
l’Europe et de la Méditerranée, 7 promenade
Robert Laffont, focuses on the understanding of the night sky in the
Mediterranean, as seen from Earth. From the first surveys of the
ancient Mesopotamian sky to the vogue for contemporary astrology, via
medieval Arab-Muslim astronomy and the Galilean revolution, the
societies of the Mediterranean basin have referred to the stars to
situate themselves in the cosmos and organize their lives on Earth.
Knowledge and beliefs circulated between the two shores, creating a
common culture of the sky that still nourishes our contemporary
approach to the stars.
September 3, 2025 – January
9, 2026 - Lawrence, Kansas
University of Kansas Libraries will
feature a new student-curated exhibition, Travel, Tourism, and the
Transmission of Knowledge in and Around Japan. Created by
University of Kansas students in the Kress Foundation Department of
Art History spring seminar “Manuscripts, Maps, and Illustrated
Books,” the new exhibition examines how knowledge — from
the scientific to the spiritual and even the outlandish — was
shared through centuries of travel, tourism and the circulation of
books and manuscripts in Japan and beyond. The exhibition features
materials dating from 1646 to 1936, showcasing works from the Spencer
Library’s collections, including a wide range of materials from
woodblock prints, maps, religious artifacts and ephemera,
December 14, 2024 - January 11,
2026 - Kansas City
The story of Mapping the Heavens: Art,
Astronomy, and Exchange between the Islamic Lands and Europe
begins in the Islamic World during the Early Middle Ages (c. 500s –
1200s CE), where Muslim scientists preserved and advanced the study
of astronomy. Access to these scientific texts– many collected
and translated in Spain in the 1200s and widely disseminated in books
after the invention of the printing press in the 1400s–fueled a
revolution of new discoveries and created a shared astronomical
knowledge across Europe. The works presented in this exhibition
introduce the advancement of astronomy as a multi-cultural and
multi-faith dialogue between scholars and scientists, showcasing the
beauty and importance of the books, instruments, and images that
communicated these discoveries. It can be viewed in Nelson-Atkins
Museum of Art, 4525 Oak St.
October 24, 2025 - January 18,
2026 – London
The
British Library, 96 Euston Rd, exhibition Secret Maps will
focus on the relationship between mapping and secrecy in a global
context between the 9th and 21st centuries. On display will be a
secret Ordnance Survey map, copies of which were later destroyed,
produced ahead of the General Strike of 1926 illustrating potential
weak spots in the case of civil unrest. Maps used by governments in
international conflicts will also feature, including a map of part of
the Normandy coast produced in 1944 in the weeks leading up to D-Day.
On the once top secret invasion plan can be seen detailed information
about German defences, gathered from intelligence sources including
low-level flying missions, special services agents and the French
resistance.
October 3, 2005 - January 19,
2026 - San Antonio
History buffs and proud Texans will get to
glimpse unique maps, focusing on the Lone Star State at the Briscoe
Western Art Museum, 210 W. Market Street. The museum will show Going
to Texas: Five Centuries of Texas Maps, which includes a rare,
private map collection that spans nearly 500 years of Texas history.
The exclusive exhibition features 64 original maps from the Yana and
Marty Davis Map Collection.
March 9, 2024 - January 25, 2026
– Edinburgh
Between 1939 and 1945, more than 36 million
photographs and 342 million maps were produced by the British Armed
Forces. These precious tools were vital in directing and devising
escape plans for troops during the Second World War, but over the
years their purpose has changed, and now they are military mementos
and memories. To treasure the personal stories behind these WW2 maps,
the National War Museum in Edinburgh Castle is putting a selection of
them on display. Maps: Memories of the Second World War
explores the purpose of a map as much more than just a physical or a
functional object and reveals the stories of the people who kept
these maps as a memory of a personal journey.
January 5-28, 2026 - Tiburon,
California
Visitors to Tiburon Town Hall, 1505 Tiburon
Boulevard, can step back in time to see what the Tiburon Peninsula
looked like 150 years ago, including what stores lined Tiburon’s
Main Street and failed plans to build Hygeia, a utopian residential
community in town. Those details and more of life on the peninsula in
the late 19th and early 20th centuries are captured in a series of
original and reproduced historical maps of Tiburon, Belvedere and the
surrounding area. in Town Hall’s downstairs gallery. The
exhibit, Historic Maps from the Landmarks Society Archives, is
curated by Belvedere-Tiburon Landmarks Society Archivist Jennifer
Hartung and Town Historian Dave Gotz and features 15 maps from the
mid-1800s to the mid-1900s.
June 23, 2025 - January 31, 2026
- Marquette, Michigan
The Marquette History Center, 145 W.
Spring St., will have Mad About Maps on display. Maps are a
valuable tool for seeing history at work. Maps have been used as an
aid to all types of transportation, from steamboat routes to today’s
single-track bike trails. They are also used as a marketing tool, for
reference and as entertainment. View maps of the Great Lakes and
Marquette County.
July 5, 2025 - January 31, 2026 -
Cebu City, Philippines
The National Museum of the Philippines
and Philippine Map Collectors Society present Classics of
Philippine Cartography, an exhibition of rare historical maps and
sea charts of the Philippine archipelago from the early 16th century
to the mid-20th century. Over 80 original maps and 10 reproductions
from the collections of PHIMCOS members and institutions in the
Philippines, the Netherlands, Spain and the United Kingdom are shown
in this exhibition. The exhibition is in the National Museum of the
Philippines-Cebu, A. Pigafetta St., Brgy. San Roque (Ciudad).
October 9, 2025 – February
14, 2026 – Chicago
Mapping Outside the Lines can
be seen at The Newberry, 60 West Walton Street. Lines are the
foundation of the visual language of maps. For centuries, mapmakers
have experimented with the placement, density, and purpose of lines
like these to make maps seem simple and objective. This exhibition,
curated by David Weimer (Robert A. Holland Curator of Maps and
Director of the Hermon Dunlap Smith Center for the History of
Cartography) follows lines on maps to their extremes.
October 12, 2025 - February 22,
2026 - Sint-Niklaas, Belgium
Maps in Books is a
temporary exhibition in the exhibition hall of MAP - Curiosum,
Zwijgershoek 14, and serves as an "opening precursor" to
the new MAP - Mercator experience museum in Sint-Niklaas. From the
15th century onward, maps appeared in atlases and travelogues, as
evidence of discoveries or as instruments of power and government.
Regional maps established national borders and ownership. Military
maps determined strategies for battles.
October 8, 2025 - February 27,
2026 – Stanford
Above & Below: Cartography Beyond
Terrain, an exhibition curated by the 2025 Ruderman Conference
presenters, can be seen at the David Rumsey Map Center, Green
Library, 557 Escondido Mall. The exhibition explores how maps depict
the depths of the Earth, the ocean floor, weather systems, the solar
system, and even the seemingly intangible internet – anything
but the Earth's surface. This exhibition celebrates the multifaceted
nature of mapping, inviting reflection on our interconnected
existence and revealing the beauty and complexity of our world.
October 16, 2025 - February 28,
2026 – Barcelona
In just over a century, the city and
plain of Barcelona experienced spectacular urban growth that
profoundly transformed its morphology and landscape. To manage all
these spatial changes, the administration needed to create maps: maps
to design projects such as new urban plans, the expansion and
improvement of the road network, water supply, the construction of a
modern sewage system, and the creation of urban parks. A series of
transformations for which cartography became essential. The
exhibition Barcelona on maps: managing the growth of the city
(1800-1925) can be seen in Historical Archive of the City of
Barcelona, Casa de l'Ardiaca, Carrer Santa Llúcia, 1.