Inventory of Historic Maps of Mississippi,
created 2007-2017,
by Paul Davis

The Inventory of Historic Maps of Mississippi is pleased to assist you in identifying, locating and, in most cases, viewing high-resolution images of historic maps of Mississippi, most of which are pre-20th century. For assistance in locating your special maps see the General and Technical Information section which also contains Search Hints.

Mission: Systematically inventory as many historic maps of Mississippi as possible and compile and present the inventory in a manner that will easily lend itself to the research needs of all investigators, be they professional or amateur.

Goals and objectives:

  1. Arrange the inventory of historic maps of Mississippi so that researchers can easily locate items with specific features and information for required geographical areas of the state, especially counties.
  2. Provide links to high-resolution images of as many maps as possible.
  3. Provide up to fourteen fields of information for each map in the inventory.
  4. Abandon traditional print-publication plans and convert the inventory into a free, Web-based presence.
  5. Maintain and update the online inventory as new material becomes available.

Over 1,300 maps (records) have been described in a database designed to provide you with the ability to perform easy searches and obtain results based on one or more of fifteen categories (fields) of information for each map referenced: title, author, scale, situation date, publication date, type of map, features, comments, geographic coverage, repository, language, publisher, size, links to scanned images and color status. Most of the maps have information for each field. Absent fields indicate that no information was available via online or in-house searches.

The fields reported for each map generally constitute generic data about that item. A few data fields briefly discuss associated cartographic information such as publication details, co-authors and various official agencies and authorities. However, the project is not an attempt at map history or cartographic scholarship. Some map reports do have bibliographies and references to other sites such as the David Rumsey Map Collection that provide more wide-ranging discussions about the genesis and publication history of some Mississippi maps.