Cartography - Calendar of Exhibitions


To learn more about non-current maps see Map History / History of Cartography.
Meeting announcements can be found at Cartography - Calendar of Meetings and Events.
Click here for archive of past exhibitions.


Indefinite – Ankara
The Museum of Cartography, one of the meritorious museums of Ankara, serves under the Ministry of National Defense. Located in the Cebeci District, it is classified as a kind of Military Museum and the museum is located exactly inside the Central Barracks. The Museum of Cartography invites visitors to explore Türkiye’s rich cartographic heritage, showcasing historical maps, measurement tools and rare artifacts that highlight the nation’s mapping journey through centuries.



Indefinite – Boston
Becoming Boston: Eight Moments in the Geography of a Changing City can be seen in the Norman B. Leventhal Map & Education Center at the Boston Public Library, 700 Boylston St. The exhibition follows the changing spatial forms of the place we now call Boston. Maps trace out the complicated history of places, and we can use them to document geography in much the same way that we can use diaries and letters to document biography. In the eight cases of this exhibition, we follow the changing spatial forms of the place we now call Boston—from before the landscape carried that name all the way through the struggles, clashes, and dreams that continue to reshape the city today.



Indefinite – Bucharest
The Muzeul Național al Hărților și Cărții Vechi [National Museum of Old Maps and Books], str.Londra nr.39 sector 1, opened to the public in 2003 and is hosted in a beautiful villa built in the 1920's. The main collection of over 1000 items belonged to Professor Adrian Năstase’s family and was donated to the Romanian state. Numerous maps are displayed on the walls of this three story villa.



Indefinite – Edinburgh
Treasures of the National Library of Scotland is a permanent exhibition of 13th- to 18th-century objects in the library's collection which can be seen in George IV Bridge building. Included are some of the first detailed maps of Scotland created by Timothy Pont more than 400 years ago. The maps chart the geography of 16th-Century Scotland including details of tower houses and castles, smaller buildings and settlements, mills and rivers and the extent of woodland and physical features such as rivers and valleys and mountain tops. They also mention landowners and other people.



Indefinite - Jacksonville, Florida
The Lewis Ansbacher Map Collection contains some 244 antiquarian maps of Florida and Florida cities, North and South America, and the world. It includes historical views and plates focusing on northern Florida. Most of these maps are on permanent display in the Morris Ansbacher Map Room on the fourth floor of the Main Library, 303 N. Laura Street. Additional information 813-228-0097.



Indefinite - Kozani, Greece
Kozani in the World of Maps is on display at the Municipal Map Library housed in the recently restored Georgios Lassanis Mansion at the center of the city. The historic Map Library, with its roots in 17th century, keeps a small but important collection of maps, atlases and geography books, mainly from 18th century, referred to the period of Greek Enlightenment. For example, a copy of the 1797 Rigas Velestinlis "Charta" as well as the extremely rare 1800 Anthimos Gazis world map are kept there among other maps and atlases which were never before put on public display. Contact info(at)kozlib.gr or 2461 50635 / 2461 50632 for additional information.



Indefinite - Kynceľová, Slovakia
The Slovak Map Museum, Kynceľová 77, presents you not only the rich past and exceptional present of cartography in Slovakia, but also the traditional and modern methods and technologies that create maps. Its uniqueness lies not only in the content of its exhibition, but also in its form. It was based on the principles of the global trend of enriching experiences for visitors through interactivity, advances in high technology and modern principles of education. What would a museum be like without the history of cartography and old maps? We will look at the development of maps in the world, but of course also in Slovakia. You will also find some truly unique maps here.



Indefinite - Lake Geneva, Wisconsin
What is believed to be an original map of Lake Geneva — found recently inside a historic lakefront mansion — now offers the public a rare glimpse of the city in its earliest origins. The map from the early 1840s is part of Geneva Lake Museum’s new exhibit Mapping the Past. The exhibit features about 30 maps of Lake Geneva and the surrounding area, including the original map showing Lake Geneva’s layout just after pioneers incorporated the new municipality in 1836. The majority of the maps in the exhibit have been donated by Edward Weed of the town of Linn.



Indefinite – La Rochelle, France
The Musée du Nouveau Monde [Museum of the New World], 10 Rue Fleuriau, is housed in an eighteenth century mansion, the hotel Fleuriau, named after the family who lived there from 1772 to 1974. The Museum features numerous old maps of the Americas as well as sculptures, paintings, drawings, furniture and decorative objects. These objects are evidence of the triangular trade and slavery with the Americas, through which the city of La Rochelle, like others, amassed considerable wealth. Part of the museum is devoted to the French conquest of the New World, especially in Canada, while evoking the Old West and Native Americans.



Indefinite – Mexico City
Museo Nacional de la Cartografia, at Avenida Observatorio No. 94, corner of Periférico Tacubaya, D.F., C.P. 11870, Delegación Miguel Hidalgo, features exhibits about the general history of mapping of Mexico. Codices, atlases, navigational charts, topographic plans, and instruments used to make geodesic and topographical measurements are on display.



Indefinite - Mussoorie, India
The newly inaugurated George Everest Cartography Museum, located in the George Everest House which was owned by Everest from 1832 to 1843, is a one-of-a-kind institution dedicated to preserving the rich history of cartography, surveying, and mountaineering. The museum boasts an impressive collection of exhibits showcasing the Great Trigonometric Arc Survey initiated by Everest himself. Visitors can also explore the extensive survey records of various Himalayan peaks undertaken by Indian mountaineers. The museum is not only a treasure trove of historical documents but also an educational resource. Information about the diverse instruments used in these groundbreaking surveys is thoughtfully presented, allowing visitors to delve into the methods employed by these pioneers.



Indefinite - Palma, Majorca
Bartolomé March Servera (1917-1998) became an important art collector and bibliophile. The Fundación Bartolomé March established a museum, where the family residence in Palma was located for decades, to display his collection. The Palau March, located at Carrer del Palau Reial, 18, displays an outstanding collection of art and sculpture. Another of the numerous collections that Bartolomé March brought together was that of Majorcan Cartography. In Majorca, between the 14th and 15th Century, an important set of navigation charts signed by local artists was drawn up. The great majority of these charts left the island and the most famous of them ended up in public libraries or in private hands. Bringing together this collection, considered to be one of the best in the world, was an arduous task. The exhibit displayed here, with excellent documentation, brings together a very interesting collection both for its technical perfection and its exquisite ornamental effect. Included are Portolan charts by Jacobus Russus (1535), Mateo Prunés (1561), Jaume Olives (1564 and 1571), Joan Oliva (1620), and Miquel Prunés (1640).



Indefinite - Sint-Niklaas, Belgium
The Mercator Museum, Zamanstraat 49, has been closed since April 3, 2023 for renovation. The Museum plans to welcome you again in December 2025 in a larger and up-to-date new Museum. The Museum will display a chronological story of cartography, from ancient times to today. In this story, the figure and work of Gerard De Cremer (Rupelmonde 1512 - 1594 Duisburg) - aka Gerard Mercator - is placed in the spotlight. His rare earth globe (1541) and celestial globe (1551), recently included in the Flemish masterpieces list, remain the highlights of the museum. The rich collection of atlases, including his first Ptolemy edition 1584, shines in the showcases. The story is complemented by a carefully chosen selection of maps and atlases from the 17th to the early 20th century.



Indefinite - Suwon, South Korea
The National Map Museum of Korea is located in the National Geographic Information Institute (NGII). Four exhibition rooms are designed to help visitors understand the development of maps in Korea and the world through various types of maps including Daedongyeojido of Kim Jeongho, and modern maps made by NGII. Models of surveying instruments are displayed.



Indefinite – Sydney
Visitors to the State Library of New South Wales can explore five centuries of cartography from around the world in one place in the Map Rooms. Across two beautiful rooms visitors will find some of the most important maps, globes and navigation instruments from the Library's maps collection - arguably the most significant in Australia. One of the major highlights is a chart of the Indian Ocean and Asia — one of only four copies in the world — printed on vellum by Jacob Colom in 1633. Other highlights include: an extremely rare 1515 map by Albrecht Dürer and Johannes Stabius depicting the world as a sphere; a beautiful hand-coloured copy of the iconic nineteen counties (the legal boundaries of the colony up to that date) map produced by Sir Thomas Mitchell in 1834; the 1940 Tindale map showing the distribution of Aboriginal nations in NSW; and  a selection of rare early maps showing the gradual colonisation and expansion of Sydney from a penal settlement to a bustling metropolis. The Map Rooms are located on the first floor of the Mitchell Building, 1 Shakespeare Place, open every day.



Indefinite - Tampa, Florida
The Touchton Map Library and Florida Center for Cartographic Education, at The Tampa Bay History Center, 801 Old Water Street, is home to more than 8,000 maps, charts and other documents dating back from the early European exploration of North America more than 500 years ago up through the early 21st century. A rotating exhibition of selected maps from the collection can be viewed in the Saunders Foundation Gallery.



Indefinite - Vienna
The Globe Museum of the Austrian National Library, Palais Mollard, Herrengasse 9, is the world's only institution devoted to the study of globes and related instruments like armillary spheres and planetariums. On display in eight rooms are many of the more than 460 globes owned by the Museum. Additionally there is a bilingual (German and English) multimedia presentation about globe history, globe making, and the use of globes. Additional information from globen(at)onb.ac.at or Tel.: (+43 1) 534 10-710 or Fax: (+43 1) 534 10-319.



Indefinite – Washington
In 2011, Albert H. Small donated to George Washington University Museum, 701 21st Street NW, his unrivaled collection of 1,000 maps and prints, rare letters, photographs, and drawings that document the history of Washington, DC. A Collector’s Vision: Creating the Albert H. Small Washingtoniana Collection presents highlights of the Albert H. Small Washingtoniana Collection, including Mr. Small's first acquisition and other items that explore what motivates individuals to collect.



September 4, 2021 – Indefinite - Eastsound, Washington
How do you get to Orcas Island? How did the early explorers find their way before they even knew what was there to be found? The Orcas Island Historical Society’s new exhibition Mapping Orcas: The Way Home features an extraordinary collection of maps, most of which were assembled, restored, and reproduced by photographer Peter C. Fisher of Orcas Island. Also featured in the museum are exquisite, hand-drawn, original maps by the late Jean Putnam. Maps include the township section map (1888-1895) by J.J.Gilbert, a variety of geological and navigational charts, and a number of maps specially created for the “edification” of tourists and amusement of locals. Also exhibited is a reproduction of a really old map, edited by three explorers in the 18th century, that certainly verifies Juan de Fuca’s 16th-century description of the islands he saw on his voyage to the Northwestern part of the largely unknown continent. Two mid-nineteenth-century maps by John Wilkes and his expedition show great leaps in the inaccuracy of surveying and navigational methods. The Museum is open Tuesday thru Saturday from 11 a.m. – 3 p.m. It’s that cluster of log cabins on North Beach Road, right beside the Village Green. Admission is by donation.



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.



June 7, 2025 – November 2, 2025 - Kingston, New York
Before satellites circled the Earth and smartphones fit in our pockets, maps were something we held in our hands — and in our imaginations. The exhibit Ulster in Maps: 1752–1951 invites you on a journey through time, space, and story, as told through more than two centuries of cartographic beauty. From the hand-drawn elegance of 18th-century land surveys to the bold colors of mid-20th-century road maps, these documents do more than chart territory. They reveal what we valued, what we claimed, and how we understood the land — and ourselves. Exhibit can be seen in Ulster County Historical Society Museum · 2682 State Route 209. Museum is open Saturdays & Sundays 11am – 5pm.



June 14, 2024 - December 2025 – Washington
The new Library of Congress exhibition Collecting Memories: Treasures from the Library of Congress, which is part of the David M. Rubenstein Treasures Gallery on the on the second-floor mezzanine of the Thomas Jefferson Building, is open to the public. Over 100 objects in many formats from divisions all over the Library of Congress are integrated and featured in this exhibition. Some fine cartographic treasures are displayed as mementos of how different cultures saw the world at different points in time.



June 29, 2024 - June 26, 2026 - Cambridge Massachusetts
The idea of sea monsters has captivated us for centuries. Could there really be something scary lurking in the dark depths? Folklore and popular culture say yes, yet science urges us to dive a little deeper. Sea Monsters: Wonders of Nature and Imagination is a new exhibition at the Harvard Museum of Natural History, 26 Oxford Street. The exhibition features historical illustrations of these fabled monsters and detailed ancient mariners’ maps. Ancient maps held important cultural knowledge, often revealed through depictions of mythological creatures that served as warnings of dangerous and uncharted waters.



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.



March 24, 2025 - September 28, 2025 – London
How has the world been mapped since the advent of the printed book in the late 15th century? In this exhibition, From streets to the stars: 500 years of maps, we invite you to explore a range of maps from the past 500 years, from street maps of London to maps of the constellations. Exhibition is in Maughan Library, King's College London, The Weston Room.



April 1, 2025 – October 10, 2025 - Hamilton, Ontario
McMaster University Libraries is partnering with the McMaster Museum of Art to host an exhibition that will feature rare books, maps, and antiquities related to the history of the Mediterranean. The Great Sea: Mediterranean Imaginaries from Antiquity to Modernity, open at the McMaster Museum of Art, 1280 Main St W, will feature materials from the university libraries’ William Ready Division of Archives and Research Collections, its Lloyd Reeds Map Collection, and the museum’s own collection of related antiquities.



April 1, 2025 - December 31, 2025 - Maspeth, New York
The Newtown Historical Society, in collaboration with Council Member Robert Holden, has unveiled its latest exhibit, Historic Maps of Newtown. It is now open to the public at Holden’s district office, located at 58-38 69 St., 2nd Floor. The exhibit is available for viewing during regular business hours. The exhibit combines materials from both Holden’s personal collection and that of the Newtown Historical Society.



April 2, 2025 - September 19, 2025 – Stanford
Spheres of Influence: Projecting Power and Fear Onto the Globe, an exhibition curated by California Map Society and David Rumsey Map Center Student Exhibition Competition winner Champ Turner, can be viewed at at David Rumsey Map Center, 557 Escondido Mall. The exhibit traces the use of the global view map—a type of map that shows the Earth's curved surface as if seen from space—over time, from its emergence in the 1930s to today. The exhibition invites you to examine how cartographers, publications, and governments have used the global view to inform, persuade and subtly shape our sense of place in the world.



April 3, 2025 - March 2026 – Boston
The Leventhal Map & Education Center will mark the 250th anniversary of the start of the Revolutionary War with a new exhibition, Terrains of Independence, in our gallery at the Central Library in Copley Square. Terrains of Independence poses a central geographical question: what was it about Boston and Massachusetts in the last half of the eighteenth century that made the region such a tinderbox for Revolutionary activity?



April 8, 2025 – November 2, 2025 - Waudrez, Belgium
The small exhibition Tous les chemins mènent à Vodgoriacum is devoted to the representation of Gaul and of Roman roads through ancient maps. It is organised by the Gallo-Roman Museum of Waudrez, located on the ancient road leading from Bavay to Cologne.



April 11, 2025 - December 28, 2025 – Philadelphia
Fifes and drums, tricorn hats and muskets, and lots of red, white, and blue. Perhaps these are the images that come to mind when you think of Revolutionary-era Philadelphia. A new exhibition, Philadelphia, the Revolutionary City, at American Philosophical Society Museum, 104 S. 5th Street, complicates this stale and limited version of life in the “Birthplace of the Nation” during the messy era in which that birth was taking place. A rich variety of material objects, maps, letters, documents, broadsides, and other ephemera depict Philadelphia from 1760 to the early 1780s as a diverse, dynamic city in which loyalties were sometimes murky and changeable. The Museum is open from 10 am to 5 pm, Thursday through Sunday.



May 2, 2025 - Fall 2025 – Philadelphia
The Chestnut Hill Conservancy’s (8708 Germantown Ave.) new exhibition, Mapping the Wissahickon: From the Colonial Era to an Evolving Watershed, explores the changing landscape of the Wissahickon Valley and ongoing preservation efforts to shape its future. Despite its title, Mapping the Wissahickon presents more than just maps. Property plans and guidebooks are a few of the other objects on display. The Conservancy is open Fridays and Saturdays, 10:00 AM–4:00 PM.



June 2, 2025 - December 11, 2025 – Stanford
The Branner Earth Sciences Library & Map Collections, 397 Panama Mall, exhibit The Colonial Gulf: How Empires Documented a Region explores how the British, Ottoman and American empires documented the human and non-human geography, resources, and landscapes of the Persian Gulf and Arabian Peninsula in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It features historical maps and artifacts from the collections of the Branner Earth Sciences Library and the David Rumsey Map Center alongside cartographic visualizations created by the OpenGulf research collective.



June 7, 2025 - September 21, 2025 - Los Angeles
The Los Angeles Public Library presents UnMapping LA: Concrete Landscapes and Re-Imagined Futures in Central Library’s Annenberg Gallery, 630 W. Fifth St. UnMapping LA juxtaposes historic cartographic materials and newly commissioned contemporary artworks by Scacco. Using Sanborn fire insurance maps, documentation of changing river courses, maps of Indigenous village sites and freeway outlines, the exhibit traces the transformations of Los Angeles’ ecological and cultural topographies. Archival materials reveal how policies such as redlining, freeway construction and water diversion continue to impact communities today.



June 20, 2025 – December 31, 2025 – Amsterdam
Sea charts are crucial on board ships. But how and why did the sea chart come into being? The cartography exhibition Charting the Sea, in The National Maritime Museum, explores the history of sea charts together with maritime atlases and survey instruments.



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).



July 7, 2025 – October 3, 2025 - Zurich
In the new exhibition Die Schweiz im Spiegel der Vergangenheit – Mosaiksteine vergessener Landschaften <Switzerland in the Mirror of the Past – Mosaic Pieces of Forgotten Landscapes>, the ETH Library (Max Frisch Archive of the ETH Library, ETH Main Building, H-floor, Room H 26) takes you on a historical search. Using rare old prints and maps from the ETH Library's holdings, the new exhibition shows places, landscapes, and monuments that have been lost or altered due to various circumstances.



July 18, 2025 - August 2, 2026 – Denver
In 1776 two Franciscan priests named Domínguez and Escalante set out from Santa Fe into territory unknown, lands claimed by Spain but controlled by the Tribes who called it home. With Indigenous guides and the help of Native tribes, the Padres and their party of twelve navigated harsh terrain, mapped vital trade routes, and documented Native cultures that had thrived in the region for centuries before Europeans arrived. History Colorado Center, 1200 Broadway, arranged an exhibition Expedition 1776: The Journey of Domínguez & Escalante. A specially assembled collection of rare archival maps will trace Spain’s growing knowledge of the West before the journey and how the Domínguez and Escalante expedition’s cartographic contributions continued to shape maps of the region well into the American settlement period.



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,



September 8, 2025 – June 13, 2026 - Portland, Maine
For America's sesquicentennial (250th anniversary), the Osher Map Library and Smith Center for Cartographic Education at the University of Southern Maine has organized a year-long exhibition Founding Memories: America at 250 that highlights how the iconography of the American Revolution has been incorporated onto a wide variety of maps and cartographic materials from the 1770s to the 1970s.



September 18, 2025 – October 8, 2025 - Zadar, Croatia
"Il mare che unice": Le carte nautiche che hanno costruito l’immagine dell’Adriatico tra il XVI e il XIX secolo <"The Sea that Unites": The nautical charts that shaped the image of the Adriatic between the 16th and 19th centuries> can be seen at University of Zadar. It was organized Roberto Almagià, in collaboration with the Universities of Zadar (Croatia) and Trieste (Italy).



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.



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 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.



March 24, 2026 - 19 July 19, 2026 – Paris
The exhibition Cartes imaginaires, imaginaire des cartes <Maps of the Imagination, Imagination of Maps> can be seen at the François-Mitterrand site of the BnF.


Last Updated on September 3, 2025 by John W. Docktor <phillymaps(at)gmail(dot)com>