New members and visitors are always welcome to attend these
events.
Please submit your meeting notices to John W. Docktor
<phillymaps(at)gmail(dot)com>
To learn more about
non-current maps see Map
History / History of Cartography.
Exhibition announcements
can be found at Cartography
- Calendar of Exhibitions.
Click here
for archive of past events.
November 30, 2023 - Oxford The 31st Annual Series Oxford Seminars In Cartography will have Field Trip: Mapping Middle-earth: how Tolkien created a convincing world. The trip will be led by Catherine McIlwaine (Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford). Booking is essential for this Field Trip - for further details, please contact <nick.millea(at)bodleian.ox.ac.uk> or 01865 287119.
December 1, 2023 - New Haven The sole Connecticut Map Society event this season is our annual Show and Tell, to be held at 7 pm. This event spotlights 6 or 7 member presentations, 10 minutes each. It’s always fun. You don’t need to present in order to attend, of course. It’s a party, too: we’ll graze (appetizers), drink (wine & non-alcoholic beverages), and chat. Whether you intend to show & tell, or simply sit back and enjoy, you’ll need to RSVP to <connie(at)redstonestudios.com>. Meeting location details (New Haven’s East Rock neighborhood) will be sent when you respond.
December 2, 2023 – Brussels The Brussels Map Circle will meet 09:30-13:00 at Panorama Room, KBR (Royal Library of Belgium), Mont des Arts /Kunstberg. There will be six talks about Mapping the Congo Basin. Speakers in include Wouter Bracke, Mathilde Leduc, Mirela Altic, Rick Smit, Colin Dupont, and Marc Dassier. If you would like to join this event please advice our Secretary Marie-Anne Dage <marie.anne.dage(at)gmail.com.
December 3, 2023 - Leesburg, Virginia Thomas Balch Library, 208 W Market St, will host author John E. Ross in a discussion of Traveling through Time beginning at 2 p.m. Copies of his most recent book "Through the Mountains: The French Broad River and Time" will be available for purchase. In the discussion, Ross will explore how we can travel back to the earliest European discovery of America and settling of Virginia through readily available historic maps. He’ll show examples from extensive portfolios of online maps dating back to Diego Riberio’s 1529 sketch of coast of the western hemisphere. Pre-registration is required for this event. Please call 703-737-7195, email <balchlib(at)leesburgva.gov>, or register online.
December 5, 2023 – Denver (Hybrid) India Wood will speak about The Navigation of the Colorado-X Now, and Then at a Rocky Mountain Map Society meeting, starting at 5:30pm, in History Colorado Center, downtown Denver. Program will be in the Martin Room, 4th floor. Please enter the building at the main (front) entrance. India Wood will explore her expedition of the 1,470-mile Colorado X by comparing the goals, navigational methods, maps, and obstacles which shaped her own route and those of the 19th-century explorers Zebulon Pike, Stephen Long, and John Fremont. Their shared places include the South Platte and Arkansas rivers, Manitou Springs, South Park, Breckenridge, and the San Juan Mountains. Contact Rocky Mountain Map Society <naomi.heiser(at)colorado.edu> for Zoom link.
December 6-8, 2023 – Hong Kong (Hybrid) The Institute of Chinese Studies, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, École française d'Extrême-Orient, and The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology co-organized a lecture series “The Backgrounds of the Chinese Maps / Their Reading and Understanding”. Hong Kong University of Science and Technology will hold a symposium Mapping East Asia in Context. The lecture could be seen via Zoom.
December 6, 2023 – Washington (Online) Hosted by the Washington Map Society, this Zoom meeting is presented in partnership with the California, Chicago, New York, Philip Lee Phillips, Rocky Mountain, and Texas Map Societies. Anyone interested in participating in the meeting must RSVP to John Docktor at <washmap(at)gmail.com> in order to receive the meeting ID and passcode. Meeting will start at 7:00 PM Eastern Time, 6:00 PM Central Time, 5:00 PM Mountain Time, and 4:00 PM Pacific Time. Imre Demhardt (Virginia and Jenkins Garrett Endowed Chair in the History of Cartography, University of Texas at Arlington; Chair: International Cartographic Association, Commission on the History of Cartography) will discuss The Changing Map of the Island of Enchantment: Puerto Rico and the Spanish-American War of 1898.
December 7, 2023 - London (Hybrid) - The Thirty-Third Series of “Maps and Society Lectures” in the history of cartography are convened by Catherine Delano-Smith (Institute of Historical Research) and Philip Jagessar (King’s College London) with Tony Campbell and Peter Barber (both formerly Map Library, British Library) and Alessandro Scafi (Warburg Institute). Meetings are normally held on selected Thursdays at 5.00 pm and are followed by refreshment. Enquiries to <c.delano-smith(at)qmul.ac.uk>, or <philip.jagessar(at)kcl.ac.uk>. All meetings are hybrid but please note that for this series all will be held in Room 243, Senate House, University of London. We strongly encourage all who can to support the speaker by attending in person. All meetings are free but anybody wishing to attend a meeting must, please, indicate their intention at the Warburg Institute's What's On page, to register. Those attending remotely will be sent a link with guidelines. Tom Simpson (Department of Geography, University of Cambridge) will speak about Maps that Made Climate Change, c.1800 to the Present Day.
December 12, 2023 - Washington (Online) Join us from 3:00-4:00pm EST for a virtual orientation Introduction to Geospatial Resources that aims to provide an overview of the geospatial resources of the Geography & Map Division, including an introduction to geographic information systems (GIS), spatial data formats, and the geospatial activities of the Division. This session will be followed by a Q&A session with GIS specialists. Contact Email <maps(at)loc.gov>. Register here.
December 20, 2023 - Boston Join Leventhal Map & Education Center, Rabb Hall, Central Library in Copley Square, 700 Boylston Street, at 6:00 pm ET with Jake Berman for a talk on his new book, The Lost Subways of North America: A Cartographic Guide to the Past, Present, and What Might Have Been. The Lost Subways of North America offers a new way to consider this eternal question, with a strikingly visual—and fun—journey through past, present, and unbuilt urban transit. Using meticulous archival research, cartographer and artist Jake Berman has successfully plotted maps of old train networks covering twenty-three North American metropolises, ranging from New York City’s Civil War–era plan for a steam-powered subway under Fifth Avenue to the ultramodern automated Vancouver SkyTrain and the thousand-mile electric railway system of pre–World War II Los Angeles. He takes us through colorful maps of old, often forgotten streetcar lines, lost ideas for never-built transit, and modern rail systems—drawing us into the captivating transit histories of US and Canadian cities. Berman combines vintage styling with modern printing technology to create a sweeping visual history of North American public transit and urban development. With more than one hundred original maps, accompanied by essays on each city’s urban development, this book presents a fascinating look at North American rapid transit systems.
December 21, 2023 – Chicago The Chicago Map Society will meet at 5:30pm Central at Newberry Library - Ruggles Hall. There will be a Holiday Party. Additional details to be announced.
January 18, 2024 – Washington (Online) Hosted by the Washington Map Society, this Zoom meeting is presented in partnership with the California, Chicago, New York, Philip Lee Phillips, Rocky Mountain, and Texas Map Societies. This meeting was arranged with assistance of Rocky Mountain Map Society. Anyone interested in participating in the meeting must RSVP to John Docktor at <washmap(at)gmail.com> in order to receive the meeting ID and passcode. Meeting will start at 7:00 PM Eastern Time, 6:00 PM Central Time, 5:00 PM Mountain Time, and 4:00 PM Pacific Time. J. C. McElveen will discuss Herman Moll and John Senex: Mapping North America in the Early 18th Century (from the British Point of View).
January 25, 2024 - London (Hybrid) - The Thirty-Third Series of “Maps and Society Lectures” in the history of cartography are convened by Catherine Delano-Smith (Institute of Historical Research) and Philip Jagessar (King’s College London) with Tony Campbell and Peter Barber (both formerly Map Library, British Library) and Alessandro Scafi (Warburg Institute). Meetings are normally held on selected Thursdays at 5.00 pm and are followed by refreshment. Enquiries to <c.delano-smith(at)qmul.ac.uk>, or <philip.jagessar(at)kcl.ac.uk>. All meetings are hybrid but please note that for this series all will be held in Senate House, University of London. We strongly encourage all who can to support the speaker by attending in person. All meetings are free but anybody wishing to attend a meeting must, please, indicate their intention at the Warburg Institute's What's On page, to register. Those attending remotely will be sent a link with guidelines. Felix de Montety (Université Grenoble Alpes, France) will speak about The Birth of the Isogloss: Remarks on the Problem of Language Borders in the History of Cartography.
February 20, 2024 – Cambridge (Online) The Cambridge Seminars in the History of Cartography meets at 6.30pm UK time. Isabella Alexander (UTS Sydney) will discuss Controlling Copying before Copyright: A Tale of Three Britannias. All are welcome. All seminars will be on Zoom. For joining instructions, please send an email to <events(at)emma.cam.ca.uk> a few days before each seminar. For any enquiries, please contact Sarah Bendall at <sarah.bendall(at)emma.cam.ac.uk>, tel. 01223 330476. The seminars are kindly supported by Emmanuel College Cambridge.
February 20, 2024 - Washington (Online) Hosted by the Washington Map Society, this Zoom meeting is presented in partnership with the California, Chicago, New York, Philip Lee Phillips, Rocky Mountain, and Texas Map Societies. Anyone interested in participating in the meeting must RSVP to John Docktor at washmap(at)gmail.com in order to receive the meeting ID and passcode. Meeting will start at 7:00 PM Eastern Time, 6:00 PM Central Time, 5:00 PM Mountain Time, and 4:00 PM Pacific Time. Fred Rickey (Professor Emeritus, United States Military Academy) is an historian of mathematics. He will discuss George Washington, Surveyor.
February 22, 2024 – Hong Kong (Hybrid) The Institute of Chinese Studies, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, École française d'Extrême-Orient, and The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology co-organized a lecture series “The Backgrounds of the Chinese Maps / Their Reading and Understanding”. Ms. Bai Hongye (National Library of China) will present Comment on the Typology of the Map: Production and Spread from 4:30-6:30pm at The Institute of Chinese Studies, The Chinese University of Hong Kong. The lecture could be seen via Zoom.
February 22, 2024 - London (Hybrid) - The Thirty-Third Series of “Maps and Society Lectures” in the history of cartography are convened by Catherine Delano-Smith (Institute of Historical Research) and Philip Jagessar (King’s College London) with Tony Campbell and Peter Barber (both formerly Map Library, British Library) and Alessandro Scafi (Warburg Institute). Meetings are normally held on selected Thursdays at 5.00 pm and are followed by refreshment. Enquiries to <c.delano-smith(at)qmul.ac.uk>, or <philip.jagessar(at)kcl.ac.uk>. All meetings are hybrid but please note that for this series all will be held in Senate House, University of London. We strongly encourage all who can to support the speaker by attending in person. All meetings are free but anybody wishing to attend a meeting must, please, indicate their intention at the Warburg Institute's What's On page, to register. Those attending remotely will be sent a link with guidelines. Matthew Day (College of Arts, Humanities and Education, University of Derby) will speak about For the Benefit of the Nation? Richard Hakluyt's Principal Navigations (1589, 1598–1600) and Its Readers. Hakluyt Society Speaker.
March 14, 2024 - Washington (Online) Hosted by the Washington Map Society, this Zoom meeting is presented in partnership with the California, Chicago, New York, Philip Lee Phillips, Rocky Mountain, and Texas Map Societies. Arranged with assistance of Rocky Mountain Map Society. Anyone interested in participating in the meeting must RSVP to John Docktor at washmap(at)gmail.com in order to receive the meeting ID and passcode. Meeting will start at 7:00 PM Eastern Time, 6:00 PM Central Time, 5:00 PM Mountain Time, and 4:00 PM Pacific Time. Gary Spaid (Past President, Road Map Collectors Association) will discuss Why We Collect Road Maps.
March 21, 2024 - London (Hybrid) - The Thirty-Third Series of “Maps and Society Lectures” in the history of cartography are convened by Catherine Delano-Smith (Institute of Historical Research) and Philip Jagessar (King’s College London) with Tony Campbell and Peter Barber (both formerly Map Library, British Library) and Alessandro Scafi (Warburg Institute). Meetings are normally held on selected Thursdays at 5.00 pm and are followed by refreshment. Enquiries to <c.delano-smith(at)qmul.ac.uk>, or <philip.jagessar(at)kcl.ac.uk>. All meetings are hybrid but please note that for this series all will be held in Senate House, University of London. We strongly encourage all who can to support the speaker by attending in person. All meetings are free but anybody wishing to attend a meeting must, please, indicate their intention at the Warburg Institute's What's On page, to register. Those attending remotely will be sent a link with guidelines. Catherine Gibson (Johan Skytte Institute of Political Studies, University of Tartu, Estonia) will speak about Mapmakers in Action: Drawing Borders in the Baltic, 1918–20.
April 3, 2024 – Hong Kong (Hybrid) The Institute of Chinese Studies, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, École française d'Extrême-Orient, and The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology co-organized a lecture series “The Backgrounds of the Chinese Maps / Their Reading and Understanding”. Dr. Isabelle Charleux (CRNS France) will discuss Comment on the Map of the Eastern Turned Right Banner, Inner Mongolia from 4:30-6:30pm at The Institute of Chinese Studies, The Chinese University of Hong Kong. The lecture could be seen via Zoom.
April 11, 2024 – Hong Kong (Hybrid) The Institute of Chinese Studies, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, École française d'Extrême-Orient, and The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology co-organized a lecture series “The Backgrounds of the Chinese Maps / Their Reading and Understanding”. Dr. Cheng Yinong (Yunnan University) will talk about On the Chinese Administrative Maps Tradition from 4:30-6:30pm at The Institute of Chinese Studies, The Chinese University of Hong Kong. The lecture could be seen via Zoom.
April 11, 2024 - Washington (Online) Hosted by the Washington Map Society, this Zoom meeting is presented in partnership with the California, Chicago, New York, Philip Lee Phillips, Rocky Mountain, and Texas Map Societies. Anyone interested in participating in the meeting must RSVP to John Docktor at washmap(at)gmail.com in order to receive the meeting ID and passcode. Meeting will start at 7:00 PM Eastern Time, 6:00 PM Central Time, 5:00 PM Mountain Time, and 4:00 PM Pacific Time. Leonid Chekin will discuss Svalbard, Paradise and Beyond: The Arctic Islands on Medieval and Early Modern Maps.
April 24-26, 2024 - Montevideo The X Ibero-American Symposium on the History of Cartography will take place in a collaboration between the Faculty of Humanities and Educational Sciences of the University of the Republic (FHCE-Udelar), the National Historical Museum-National Directorate of Culture of the Ministry of Education and Culture of Uruguay ( MHN-DNC-MEC) and the School of Humanities of the National University of San Martín (EH-UNSAM). The central theme of the symposium, Historias de cartografías en Iberoamérica: mapear un campo de estudios, proposes to enable theoretical-methodological reflection on the history of cartography and historical cartography, as well as to celebrate the consolidation of an academic space that has been forged since 2006 with the biennial celebration of meetings of Ibero-American specialists dedicated to the study of the production and social use of cartographic images in different times and spaces. Registration will be free, and the official languages will be Spanish and Portuguese. Additional information from <xsiahc(at)gmail.com>.
April 25, 2024 - London (Hybrid) - The Thirty-Third Series of “Maps and Society Lectures” in the history of cartography are convened by Catherine Delano-Smith (Institute of Historical Research) and Philip Jagessar (King’s College London) with Tony Campbell and Peter Barber (both formerly Map Library, British Library) and Alessandro Scafi (Warburg Institute). Meetings are normally held on selected Thursdays at 5.00 pm and are followed by refreshment. Enquiries to <c.delano-smith(at)qmul.ac.uk>, or <philip.jagessar(at)kcl.ac.uk>. All meetings are hybrid but please note that for this series all will be held in Senate House, University of London. We strongly encourage all who can to support the speaker by attending in person. All meetings are free but anybody wishing to attend a meeting must, please, indicate their intention at the Warburg Institute's What's On page, to register. Those attending remotely will be sent a link with guidelines. Yvonne Lewis (Assistant National Curator (Libraries), The National Trust) will speak about Marking the miles: some annotated maps in National Trust collections.
April 27, 2024 - Chapel Hill The William P. Cumming Map Society will meet 10a - 12n at Wilson Library on the UNC-Chapel Hill campus. Margaret Pritchard will discuss More than Meets the Eye: Symbolic Messages Conveyed Through Maps. Margaret’s presentation dovetails with "Compasses, Cartouches, and Creatures: Exploring the Art of North Carolina Maps", the current map exhibit in the North Carolina Gallery in the Wilson Library.
May 7, 2024 – Cambridge (Online) The Cambridge Seminars in the History of Cartography meets at 5.30pm UK time. Jana Schuster (Historic England & New York University) will speak about The cartographic commissions of John, 2nd Duke of Montagu (1690-1749). All are welcome. All seminars will be on Zoom. For joining instructions, please send an email to <events(at)emma.cam.ca.uk> a few days before each seminar. For any enquiries, please contact Sarah Bendall at <sarah.bendall(at)emma.cam.ac.uk>, tel. 01223 330476. The seminars are kindly supported by Emmanuel College Cambridge.
June 15-16, 2024 - London The London Map Fair is the largest Antique Map Fair in Europe. It will be held at the Royal Geographical Society, 1 Kensington Gore: Saturday 12.00 pm to 7.00 pm and Sunday 10.00 am to 6.00 pm.
July 1-5, 2024 - Lyon, France Imago Mundi and the University of Lyon will be glad to welcome you back to France during the 30th International Conference on the History of Cartography, postponed from 2023. The idea of organizing the conference in Lyon with the theme Confluences - Interdisciplinarity and New Challenges in the History of Cartography is inspired by the very location of the city, as a confluence between North and South, between Saône and Rhône rivers, the Rhône Valley and the Alps. The official language of the conference will be English, and all presentations must be in that language. There will be no simultaneous translation. There will be a pre-conference visit to Paris and Bibliothèque Nationale de France on June 29th, and a post-conference tour on July 6th. Additional information from <ichc2024(at)univ-lyon3.fr>.
August 27-30, 2024 - London (Hybrid) The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers) Annual International Conference 2024 will be chaired by Professor Stephen Legg (University of Nottingham, UK). The chair’s theme will explore mapping in all its forms, in a world that is saturated with maps, from historical cartography to the newest technologies and digital practices. The conference venue will be at the Society and at Imperial College London. Additional information from <ac2024(at)rgs.org>.
September 4-7, 2024 – Basel The 21. Kartographiehistorisches Colloquium will be held. Additional details to be announced.
October 16-19, 2024 - Valletta, Malta The 41st International Map Collectors' Society annual symposium, Imago Melitae 2024, will feature six lectures by well-known figures in the cartographic world will be given along with visits to the National Library, MUZA and Lascaris War Rooms in Valletta, the Maritime Museum and the Inquisitors Palace in Vittoriosa, and the National and Ecclesiastical Archives in Rabat and Mdina. Further details to be announced.
August 26-29, 2025 - London The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers) Annual International Conference 2025 will be held. Additional details to be announced.
September 11-14, 2025 - Portland, Maine The 42nd International Map Collectors' Society annual symposium will be at the Osher Map Library and Smith Center for Cartographic Education, 314 Forest Ave. We will also be working with the University of Southern Maine facilities. The conference title is New Perspectives on Mapping New England and Maritime Canada. The program opens with an evening reception and possible keynote lecture on Thursday. Friday and Saturday will be lectures during the day and dinner on your own. Sunday, the final day, will be a behind the scenes tour and "Treasures of the Collection" in the morning. Then lunch and a walking tour of Portland in the afternoon ending around 3:00 PM. Closing banquet that night. There will be a post-symposium three-day tour of Maine Monday through Wednesday, September 15-17th. Additional details to be announced. Contact Libby Bischof <elizabeth.bischof(at)maine.edu> for more information.
October 31-November 1, 2025 - Winston-Salem The Museum Of Early Southern Decorative Arts asks you to please save the date for a two day map seminar, Mapping America & Its Expansion, as we explore the American Century and America’s westward migration during the 18th and 19th centuries. Moderated by Margaret Pritchard, Former Curator of Prints, Maps, and Wallpaper at Colonial Williamsburg, lecturers will include JC McElveen, Wesley Brown, and Chet Van Duzer. The seminar will also include a map fair.