Historical and Modern Scottish Maps

Premodern Maps

The Pont Maps Web Site Zoomable images of the earliest surviving detailed maps of Scotland, made by Timothy Pont c. 1583-c.1596. (added 28 Dec 2001)

Maps from the Collections of The National Library of Scotland Zoomable images of a large collection of historical maps of Scotland from 1560 to 1928. (added 28 Dec 2001)

19th Century Maps

Old-Maps.co.uk Searchable & zoomable versions of the UK Ordnance Survey County Series 1:10,560 scale First Edition maps, surveyed from 1846-1899. Not all places shown in the maps show up in the search, however — it seems to include only villages, towns, and cities, but not geographical features or regions. Has links to Ordnance Survey Get-a-map, so you can find an area in the 19th century map and then see a corresponding area of a modern map. Also has links to aerial photos. (added 28 Dec 2001)

Modern Maps

Ordnance Survey Get-a-map Searchable & zoomable versions of the UK Ordnance Survey 1:25,000 scale maps. Not all places shown in the maps show up in the search, however — the search seems to include only villages, towns, and cities, but not geographical features or regions. (The maps themselves include details down to buildings.) Has links to Old-Maps.co.uk, so you can find an area in the modern map and then see a corresponding area of a 19th century map. (added 28 Dec 2001)

Streetmap.co.uk Searchable & zoomable maps of the UK based on Bartholomew and Ordnance Survey data. Appearsto have about 1:8,300 scale maps and many more places included in searches than either Ordnance Survey Get-a-map or Multimap.com, including geographical features (but not regions). Also lists all matches found in a search, not just the first 10 or 15. (added 28 Dec 2001)

Multimap.com Searchable & zoomable maps of the UK based on Ordnance Survey data. Has 1:5,000 scale maps and more places included in searches than at Ordnance Survey Get-a-map, though not as many as Streetmap.co.uk. Maps don't include elevation contours except at 1:25,000 scale. (added 28 Dec 2001)

Google Maps UK Searchable & zoomable maps of the UK. Has 1:2,400 scale maps. Drawn maps show only man-made features and don't show regions, geographical features, or elevation contours. Also has satellite image maps, though not always to the same scale as the drawn maps, and many geographical features are searchable. (added 15 Aug 2006)

Useful Maps for Tourists

A Road/Motoring Atlas, at least 1:200,000 scale (3 miles = 1 inch). Key features to look for are spiral binding (so pages open and stay flat, and also can be folded back at the spine without damaging pages), elevation contours (it's very useful to know how flat or mountainous an area is, even just for driving), and about A3 size (297 x 420 mm/11.69 x 16.54 in. — big enough to be useful driving without being so big it gets in the way). Recommended atlases:

Ordnance Survey Motoring Atlas of Great Britain: Ordnance Survey appears to no longer be publishing this atlas —the only recent "Ordnance Survey" atlases I could find were published by Philip's (see below) rather than Ordnance Survey directly, and the Ordnance Survey web site doesn't list any motoring atlas in their current catalogue— which would be a real shame. The OS version was an atlas with 1:190,080 scale (3 miles = 1 inch) maps showing not only roads but regions, geographic features, tourist information, and also elevation contours. With A3 size pages and about 130-140 pages, it was an excellent size for use in a car. (I still treasure my 1989 edition, though it is sadly out of date for actual driving now...)
Ordnance Survey Philip's Superscale Britain atlas: Published by Philip's, this appears to be the replacement for the Ordnance Survey Motorting Atlas of Great Britain. Also printed on A3 size pages, but with a larger scale of 1:144,00 (2.25 miles = 1 inch), it has correspondingly more pages (about 225). I haven't seen this atlas myself, so I don't know whether this thicker book is as convenient in a car as the old Motoring Atlas was, but it sounds promising.

Medieval Scotland is published by Sharon L. Krossa (contact). Shopping online? How you can support this site. (Jan 2006)
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http://MedievalScotland.org/history/maps.shtml

Historical and Modern Scottish Maps

Premodern Maps

19th Century Maps

Modern Maps

Image Maps

Gazetteers

Useful Maps for Tourists