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.
May 1, 2025 - Ipswich We all take maps for granted today, but in the sixteenth century maps were new-fangled things, viewed by some with suspicion. In this talk, John Darby (c.1553-1608/9) of Bramford, Suffolk, surveyor, map-maker and artist, Dr Vivienne Aldous will use a case-study of one of the early East Anglian map-makers, John Darby, to investigate the uses to which early maps were put and how they quite quickly became a well-understood medium. Lecture is at 6:30 - 8pm GMT+1 in University of Suffolk, Waterfront Building Neptune Quay. Reserve a spot.
May 1, 2025 - Stanford Join the David Rumsey Map Center for a talk about chronomapping, a methodology developed by Dr. Ben Gitai of EPF Lausanne that integrates techniques from the fields of architecture, hydrology, urban planning, climatology, and more disciplines to investigate land transformation through time. The methodology is a means to produce new conceptual frameworks of territories and habitats across time, designed to counterbalance the short-sightedness of much development in the Western world. The talk, Mapping Time, Space and Habitat Talk, takes place from 3:30-4:30pm. Please register to attend.
May 6, 2025 – Cambridge (Online) The Cambridge Seminars in the History of Cartography meets at 5.30pm UK time. Onur Engin (University of Cambridge) will present Echoes on the map: unveiling the auditory history of late Ottoman Istanbul through digital cartography. All are welcome. Please register for the talk and the Zoom link will be sent to you. Please send an email to <events(at)emma.cam.ac.uk> if you wish to join the mailing list. 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.
May 6, 2025 - Washington The Washington Rare Book Group invites you to join us for our next lunchtime lecture: Episodes in the History of Printing Maps by Chet Van Duzer. Lecture will be in Rare Book Classroom, LJ-129, Thomas Jefferson Building, Library of Congress at 12:00p.m. Following a brief introduction to the woodblock and copperplate printing of maps, which includes examination of surviving woodblocks and copperplates, Chet examines several episodes in the history of map printing that are particularly revealing of the details of the process.
May 7, 2025 – Chicago (Hybrid) The Newberry Library, 60 West Walton St., will have a meeting from 6:00-7:00pm. Barbara Mundy, in conversation with Lia Markey and David Weimer, will discuss The 1524 Cortés Map of Tenochtitlán, Mexico. This program will be held in-person at the Newberry and livestreamed on Zoom. Register here.
May 8, 2025 - London (Hybrid) We're very pleased to invite you to this year's “Maps and Society” lectures in the history of cartography, hosted by the Warburg Institute. Meetings will start at the usual time of 5pm (GMT). All meetings are free and take place online and in person. For those attending in person, meetings will be held in the newly developed auditorium at the Warburg Institute, Woburn Square, and will be followed by refreshments. For those wishing to attend please register in advance to reserve your place in-person or to receive a Zoom link on the day: Any enquiries, please email <c.delano-smith(at)sas.ac.uk> or <philip.jagessar(at)kcl.ac.uk>. Yvonne Lewis (Assistant National Curator (Libraries), The National Trust) will discuss Marking the Miles: Some annotated maps in National Trust Collections.
May 8, 2025 – Washington The
Library
of Congress Geography and Map Division and Philip
Lee Phillips Society will meet in LOC Jefferson Building, LJ119
(Mahogany Row). Title: Exploring
Map Surrounds. Two
presentations with speakers discussing the significance of cartouches
and watermarks on maps from Library of Congress collections.
First
speaker (1:45pm): Chet Van Duzer, Historian of cartography, PLPS
Fellow, and board member of the Lazarus Project at the University of
Rochester, with presentation entitled “Drawing Identity:
Cartographic Self-Portraits in the 20th and 21st Centuries.”
2:45
– 3:15pm ET: Break with refreshments and Geography and Map
display.
Second speaker (3:15pm): Dr. Juliet Wiersema,
Pre-Hispanic and Spanish Colonial Art History at University of
Texas-San Antonio, and Meghan Hill, Preservation Science Specialist
at the Library of Congress with presentation entitled, “Sights
on Spice. A Historical and Material Exploration of William Hack’s
A Description of the Sea Coasts … East Indies”
Click
here to register.
May 10, 2025 – Middletown, Connecticut The Connecticut Map Society will meet at 2:00pm in Wesleyan University (Earth & Environmental Sciences Department, Exley Science Center, Church/Pine Street, 4th floor, room 405). Ellen Thomas and Joop Varekamp, curators of the Joe Webb Peoples Museum of Natural History at Wesleyan, will enlighten us about Edwin Howell: Mapping Early Explorations of the American West, within the context of the early explorations of the American West. We will look at some of the relief maps on display at Wesleyan, notably the Grand Canyon Map by Howell, as well as an 1894 curved relief map of the geology of the U.S. Other relief maps and models of volcanoes can also be inspected. We will look at some geological maps of the western U.S. with associated photographs.
May 14, 2025 - London (Online) The International Map Collectors’ Society announces that this year’s Malcolm Young Lecture will be delivered on Zoom so that all IMCoS members have an opportunity to hear this world class material. The lecture will be delivered by Rodney Kite-Powell (Director of the Touchton Map Library and Florida Center for Cartographic Education at the Tampa Bay History Center) at 18:00 - 19:30 GMT on the topic of the Tampa Cortés Letter, a letter with map created by Hernán Cortés after his conquest of the Aztec Empire in 1522. The map is significant as the first printed map showing the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlán and the first printed map of the Gulf of Mexico with the name "Florida". Registration is free.
May 14, 2025 - Sint-Niklaas, Belgium Wouter Bracke will discuss Maps of Congo from the library of Leopold II at 8:00 p.m. in SteM Zwijgershoek, Zwijgershoek 14.
May 15, 2025 – Chicago (Hybrid) You are invited to join the Chicago Map Society for an informative program at the Newberry Library, 60 W Walton St. 5:30 p.m. – social hour (delicious finger food and light refreshments); 6:00 p.m. – presentation by Richard Condit Biogeography: The Science of Mapping Life and How it Matters in Conserving Species. Register for Zoom link.
May 15, 2025 - Oxford (Online) The 32nd Annual Series Oxford Seminars In Cartography run from 4.30pm to 6.00pm (UK time). Carolina Martínez (Universidad Nacional de San Martín-CONICET, Argentina) will talk about Trans-Pacific maritime routes and Peruvian agency in three 17th-century nautical atlases. Click here to book your place. For further details please contact: Nick Millea <nick.millea(at)bodleian.ox.ac.uk>, Map Librarian, Bodleian Library, Broad Street, Oxford, OX1 3BG; Tel: 01865 287119. The Oxford Seminars in Cartography are supported by: The Friends of TOSCA / The Bodleian Libraries / The School of Geography and the Environment / The Charles Close Society / Lovell Johns Ltd.
May 16, 2025 - Aberystwyth, Ceredigion (Hybrid) Carto-Cymru - The Wales Map Symposium 2025 will be held by the National Library of Wales. Our theme this year is "The Art of Maps" and we will be exploring how artists have used maps or been influenced by them when creating works of art, as well how as the artistic elements of maps and mapmaking have changed over time. Click to register for in-person or online attendance. Additional information from Huw Thomas <huw.thomas(at)llyfrgell.cymru>.
May 16, 2025 - Boston Every place goes through changes, even the cities, countries, and empires we think will be around until the end of time. Sometimes environmental shifts or disasters bring about a catastrophic collapse. Other times human whims and desires lead to the decimation of historic areas, irreversibly altering the very fabric of the region. Through the maps on display in this From The Vault, we can revisit these places of the past. From the historic counterparts of modern day cities or the ancient ruins of a fallen society, Changed/Forgotten will show us just how much has changed, how much has been forgotten, and yet how much still remains from a time gone by. This free showing will be hosted in the Leventhal Map & Education Center with a staff member available to answer questions. Drop in any time between 2:00PM - 4:00PM. No reservation is required.
May 20, 2025 - Denver (Hybrid) The Rocky Mountain Map Society will meet at 5:30 PM MT in History Colorado Center, downtown Denver. Stephen Hoffenberg will speak about The Cartography of the Indian Country. Please register for in-person attendance and get a free ticket for entry to History Colorado for this event. No registration required for Zoom link. Just click here when meeting starts.
May 20-23, 2025 - Ottawa We warmly invite you to join Carleton University’s Department of Geography and Environmental Studies at the 75th Annual Meeting of the Canadian Association of Geographers from May 20 to 23, held jointly with the 50th Annual Conference and General Meeting of the Canadian Cartographic Association from May 20 to 21.
May 22, 2025 – Brussels The Brussels Map Circle will have the next lecture on the renovation of the Mercator Museum by Ward Bohé. Lecture will be in Map Room of KBR (Royal Library of Belgium) at 17.00-19.00. Please register: Marie-Anne Dage, Brussels Map Circle Secretary, <marie.anne.dage(at)gmail.com>.
May 23, 2025 - Stanford Join with the David Rumsey Map Center for a symposium OpenGulf: Creating Open Historical Data about the Arabian Peninsula and the Persian Gulf from 9am-12pm. The symposium marks the publication of a comprehensive dataset of geocoded place names derived from a seminal twentieth-century British colonial Gazetteer of the Persian Gulf, Arabian Peninsula, and Oman. Register to attend.
May 24, 2025 - New York The New York Map Society will visit the the Morgan Library and Museum for a one-hour Highlights Tour led by a Museum Educator. The tour, starting at 1:30pm, will include an overview of the museum’s history, architecture, historic buildings, and collections, including "The Book of Marvels: Imagining the Medieval World,” which showcases a number of fascinating medieval maps. Reserve your place via RSVP to <kapochunas(at)gmail.com>.
May 29, 2025 - Oxford (Online) The 32nd Annual Series Oxford Seminars In Cartography run from 4.30pm to 6.00pm (UK time). Petter Hellström (Uppsala Universitet) will discuss Unmapping Africa in the Age of the Enlightenment. Click here to book your place. For further details please contact: Nick Millea <nick.millea(at)bodleian.ox.ac.uk>, Map Librarian, Bodleian Library, Broad Street, Oxford, OX1 3BG; Tel: 01865 287119. The Oxford Seminars in Cartography are supported by: The Friends of TOSCA / The Bodleian Libraries / The School of Geography and the Environment / The Charles Close Society / Lovell Johns Ltd.
May 31, 2025 – New Haven The Connecticut Map Society will meet at 2-4 pm in Mitchell Library (the New Haven Public Library's Westville branch, 37 Harrison Street, parking is available next to the library). Cartographer and Connecticut Map Society founder and board member Connie Brown will talk about Manuscript Mapmaking 101: A Workshop. She will share techniques for creating your own hand-drawn maps. Is there a place or a trip you’d like to map? Your childhood home, a family migration, a journey you’d like to commemorate cartographically? Bring a commercial paper map, laptop, or iPad for reference—or skip the research and make a memory map. Materials provided. You must pre-register for this workshop: email <connie(at)redstonestudios.com>. Sign up soon: there are only 20 spots.
June 1-6, 2025 - Charlottesville Matthew Edney will be teaching a week-long seminar, H-65, Material Foundations of Map History, 1450–1900, at Rare Book School, University of Virginia. The course is intended for students, faculty, librarians, dealers, collectors, and anyone interested in early maps, whether beginners or experts. It includes broad introduction to maps and their materiality; particular consideration of atlases, maps in books, and bibliographical practices; hands-on printing with letterpress and intaglio presses; and in-class examination of maps and books from RBS's own collections.
June 5, 2025 – 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. Casey Price (Recent Ph.D. Graduate and Visiting Teaching Professor, University of Tennessee, Knoxville) will discuss Our Fire Sits Here’: The French Cartography of Indigenous Coalescence in the Native South.
June 6, 2025 – Oxford The Map Curators’ Group of the British Cartographic Society is planning a one day event. In the morning will be a map cataloguing training session, aimed at people who look after map, book or manuscript collections and would like further training on dealing with maps. The afternoon will be the MCG Workshop. Both events will be in person, at the Bahari Room, Weston Library, and people are welcome to sign up for either or both parts. Registration is required. Additional information from <martin.davis(at)cartography.org.uk> or <debbie.hall(at)cartography.org.uk>.
June 7, 2025 – London The Annual General Meeting of the International Map Collectors' Society will be held at 10am in the Library, Royal Geographical Society, 1 Kensington Gore.
June 7-8, 2025 - London The London Map Fair will be at its usual location of the Royal Geographical Society, 1 Kensington Gore. At 14:30 on Saturday, journalist and author Nicholas Nugen will speak about Spices, Maps and the origins of global sea trade.
June 11, 2025 - Sint-Niklaas, Belgium Djoeke van Netten will discuss Frozen sea and melting ice. Cartography of the North Pole at 8:00 p.m. in SteM Zwijgershoek, Zwijgershoek 14.
June 12, 2025 - Oxford (Online) The 32nd Annual Series Oxford Seminars In Cartography run from 4.30pm to 6.00pm (UK time). Jean-Marc Besse (L’École des hautes études en sciences sociales, Paris) will speak about Geography and Catholic censorship in Europe at the end of the sixteenth century. Click here to book your place. For further details please contact: Nick Millea <nick.millea(at)bodleian.ox.ac.uk>, Map Librarian, Bodleian Library, Broad Street, Oxford, OX1 3BG; Tel: 01865 287119. The Oxford Seminars in Cartography are supported by: The Friends of TOSCA / The Bodleian Libraries / The School of Geography and the Environment / The Charles Close Society / Lovell Johns Ltd.
June 12, 2025 – Vienna An International Conference on the History of Map Collecting Vienna, Central Europe and Beyond will be at University of Vienna. The conference will be organised jointly by the Vienna Center for the History of Collecting (Austria) and Moravian Library in Brno (Czech Republic) and will be accompanied by a poster exhibition on Bernard Paul Moll composite atlas preserved at Moravian Library which originated in Vienna in the 18th century. Should you have further questions, please contact the organizers Eva Chodějovská <chodejovska(at)mzk.cz> and Silvia Tammaro <silvia.tammaro(at)univie.ac.at>).
June 14, 2025 - Brooklyn The New York Map Society offers a private tour at 2:00pm for up to 20 current and former members (current members getting precedence) of Geographicus Rare Antique Maps, 923 Putnam Ave, normally open only by appointment. RSVP to <kapochunas(at)gmail.com> to attend, and include what material you'd like displayed.
June 16-20, 2025 - London Maps are simultaneously ubiquitous in everyday life yet also strangely absent from much scholarly work outside the niche field of the history of cartography. How to catalogue, study, and discuss maps as historical sources for research is a subject that draws insight from critical bibliography, the history of the book, historical geography, and other subjects, making it an interdisciplinary and dynamic field. A History of Maps and Mapping is a London Rare Book School course (University of London, Senate House, Malet Street), convened by Katherine Parker.
June 16-20, 2025 - Mexico City Since 1987 and during twenty meetings, an academic network has been consolidated between the geographic community of Latin America and the Caribbean, to face the social, economic, political, environmental and cultural challenges that the region faces. From the diversity of the territories, based on research and teaching, spaces have been built to promote the exchange of knowledge and expertise, which contribute to consolidating the identity of the geographies in the region. For this reason, the National Autonomous University of Mexico is pleased to host the "XX Meeting of Geographies of Latin America and the Caribbean" at the Ciudad Universitaria campus in Mexico City. André Reyes Novaes (UERJ - BR), Carolina Martinez (CONICET - AR) and Mariana Lamego (UERJ - BR) will host a session History of cartography and geographical imagination in Latin America. This panel aims to discuss the role of cartographic images in shaping imaginative geographies in Latin America. More information from <mariana.lamego(at)uerj.br>.
June 22, 2025 – Bethany, Connecticut The Connecticut Map Society will have a Field Trip to Whitlock Book Barn, 20 Sperry Road, at 2:00pm. A Connecticut treasure, Whitlock’s Book Barn has been in business since 1948. In its two red barns, you’ll find hundreds of used books and maps. Because map lovers tend to be book lovers, we think this field trip is for you. Store Manager Meg Turner will preside, describing the store’s history and showing us a selection of maps from the collection. Thereafter, you’re free to browse their maps and books.
June 28, 2025 - Stanford (Hybrid) The California Map Society spring conference will be in David Rumsey Map Center, Green Library, Stanford University, from 10:00 am - 4:30 pm. Hear from a superb group of speakers about historic and modern-day maps. To register for attending either in-person, click here. To register to attend by Zoom, click here.
July 8-11, 2025 – Paris The International Society for the History of the Map (ISHMap) will hold their annual conference at Campus Condorcet. The theme is Mapping the Cultural Crossroads. A two-day Workshop (8-9 July) for early career professionals (scholars, curators, archivists, and librarians) working in the history of cartography, will precede the Symposium (10-11 July). Post-event trip to Vincennes with guided tour through the cartographic treasures of the Historical Archives Center kept in the Château de Vincennes, a former fortress and royal residence dating back to 14th century is planned for 12 July. Additional details online.
August 11–15, 2025 - Los Angeles Ian Fowler (Curator of Maps, History, and Government Information; New York Public Library) will be teaching a California Rare Book School course on the History of Cartography at UCLA. This course is designed to provide a general overview of the history of mapping in the western world as well as the use of cartographic resources in modern day teaching and research.
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 Bar Harbor and Acadia National Forest Monday through Wednesday, September 15-17th. Additional details to be announced. Contact Libby Bischof <elizabeth.bischof(at)maine.edu> for more information.
October 8-9, 2025 - Rome The Historical Wall Maps Research Group, an international collective of historians and geographers dedicated to advancing the study of modern historical wall maps, is pleased to announce a workshop Hang Them Up! New Perspectives on Historical Wall Maps Studies, at the Società Geografica Italiana, Palazzetto Mattei in Villa Celimontana via della Navicella, 12. The main aim of the event is to bring together experts from different fields to explore the historical and comparative dimensions of wall maps, their cultural significance and impact on geographical knowledge across different periods and regions, and finally the possibilities for their preservation and digitization. For inquiries, please contact Arturo Gallia: <arturo.gallia(at)uniroma3.it>.
October 8-10, 2025 - Stanford The David Rumsey Map Center will host the fifth biennial Barry Lawrence Ruderman Conference on Cartography. To stay in the loop about the conference theme and speakers over the coming months, please sign up for the Ruderman Conference mailing list.
October 14, 2025 – 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. Henrik Dupont (Map Curator at The Royal Library, Denmark) will discuss Mapping of Greenland, from the 18th to 20th century.
October 16-18, 2025 – Chicago (Hybrid) The Newberry Library, 60 W Walton St., will be hosting the 22nd Kenneth Nebenzahl, Jr. Lectures in the History of Cartography. The theme will be "Mapping from Mexico: New Narratives for the History of Cartography". This program will be held in-person at the Newberry and livestreamed on Zoom. Additional registration, schedule, and speaker information will be released as the event nears.
October 17-18, 2025 - Hobart, Tasmania The annual conference of the Australian and New Zealand Map Society (ANZMapS) will be held at Museum of Old and New Art. Papers will be presented about the theme Southern Frontiers.
October 23-25, 2025 – Denver The Society for the History of Discoveries annual conference will be hosted by the Rocky Mountain Map Society and the Denver Public Library, with opening reception the evening of October 23rd, and program October 24th and 25th. The theme will be Mountains as Sites of Myth, Barriers, and Exploration. Additional information from Cortney Berg, SHD Secretary: <cberg(at)gradcenter.cuny.edu>.
October 25-26, 2025 - Liège, Belgium The Brussels Map Circle next excursion, focusing on geological mapping, will take place in Liège. More information is online. Please register before 30 September.
October 31-November 1, 2025 – Winston-Salem, North Carolina (Hybrid) Registration is open for Mapping American Expansion, a two day seminar and Map Fair at The Museum Of Early Southern Decorative Arts in Winston-Salem. 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. Concurrent with the seminar, a select group of dealers will be exhibiting maps for sale. A list of speakers, topics, dealers, and registration details (in-person or virtual) are available at https://mesda.org/program/map-seminar/.
November 14, 2025 – Paris The History Commission of the CFC is organising a study day on Cartographic exhibitions at the Institut national d'histoire de l'Art. This one-day symposium is a continuation of the previous meetings on ‘Art and Cartography’ (2023) and ‘Cartography and Cinema’ (2024), in which cartography and its history were examined from the angle of their presence in modern and contemporary visual cultures. The aim of this new day is to consider the various aspects of the encounter between cartography and the general public. Maps have long been exhibited, more or less permanently, in the galleries of major palaces and public buildings. Think, for example, of the Vatican Map Gallery or the world map room in the Farnese Palace in Caprarola. But it is not to these perennial cartographic settings, which are already well known, that this Study Day aims to focus its analysis, but rather on temporary installations. Additional information from Catherine Hofmann <catherine.hofmann(at)bnf.fr>.
November 8-14, 2026 - Tokyo and Kyoto The International Map Collectors' Society has been invited by the Japan Map Society to participate in a conference that they would host for international guests with most of the program in English. Date and program currently are tentative.